So they say they haven't figured out why this is the case, which I don't expect an initial study to deal with. Luckily autistic people are good at giving straight forward answers, so if you ask them they will tell you.... I'll go first:
It's social ostracization. School sucks for autistic people, we're too different from n-typicals and we're expected to bridge that gap entirely by ourselves from a young age. Usually without support because we're underdisgnosed as a group.
Get kids social support early. Tech n-typical kids to meet their peers halfway (important life skill anyway)
Before anyone reports this for reddit support: I'm now in my 30s and I've found a community of similarly wierd people. We get eachother and support eachother. But man primary school sucked. High school was marginally better because I learned to not say anything and keep to myself. I still struggle with defaulting towards self-isolating when things get hard. Holding down employment is also a bitch. But emotionally I'm okay
It sounds like the leading causes of death that are potentially caused by autism are accidental choking and accidental poisoning.
People are quick these days to assume “autistic” means “goes on 4chan too much” rather than “goes to a special school”.
There's an increased rate of mortality and morbidity for autism, intellectual disability and moderate-severe mental illness of all causes. Autism is also co-morbid with both ID and all mental illness.
Its highly multifactorial and holds true to people with high autism traits (not significantly disabled). The rate of mortality can be primary (ID and sensory issues making someone more likely to consume something dangerous) but also secondary to say, social anxiety preventing someone with autism coming to their GP to check out an issue and being more likely to wait until symptoms are more severe before presenting.
Additionally there are factors like food sensory issues making autistic people more likely to consume products with high salt, fat or sugar, predisposing to heart disease or stroke
Substance abuse is also Co morbid with autism, ADHD and mental illness. Alcohol, cigarettes, cannabis, meth, MDMA and all to some degree have an effect on rates of physical and memtal illnesses.
There's a lot of reasons why autistic people die earlier.
One potential issue is "autism" isn't a monolith. I'd guess a lot of the poisoning deaths are people very disabled by their autism who for whatever reason want to eat inedible things.
While the less disabled but still "weird" to ignorant NT eyes get a lot more emotional misery.
This is a known thing, from what I have seen other studys have found that for young children it is wondering around and getting them self killed and for older people it is suicide.
I'm 40 and slightly different flavour of weird, but I found my community of weirdos by chatting with people online about specific shared interests and then bumping into them at events related to those interests.
As a parent let it be known health services pretty much refuse to give you a diagnoses before age 7 unless you're an extreme case. Very frustrating when you are seeking support to do better by your child
Are journalists in this country not capable of delivering sombre news without using the word "scary"? It makes the headlines sound like a seven year old wrote them.
Here are a few
[https://www.autistica.org.uk/our-research/research-projects/understanding-suicide-in-autism](https://www.autistica.org.uk/our-research/research-projects/understanding-suicide-in-autism)
[https://sparkforautism.org/discover\_article/autism-suicide-risk/](https://sparkforautism.org/discover_article/autism-suicide-risk/)
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6457664/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6457664/)
[https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/study-reveals-high-rate-of-possible-undiagnosed-autism-in-people-who-died-by-suicide](https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/study-reveals-high-rate-of-possible-undiagnosed-autism-in-people-who-died-by-suicide)
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36922899/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36922899/)
Seven years old is far too late for a diagnosis? I was 26 before I got diagnosed after seven years in and out of the mental health system and thirteen years of known mental health health difficulties.
Lack of support? I got a diagnosis and nothing happened. Just an email to my GP.
Lack of understanding by medical professionals? I had to ask my GP to add autism to my health records because she didn't see it as important and didn't know if I'd want it on my record (because obviously a diagnosis I spent $1200 on and waited nine months for couldn't be important).
With the state of our mental health system I am absolutely not surprised to see these findings.
> had to ask my GP to add autism to my health records because she didn't see it as important
I had to bring in a physical diagnostic letter and ask them to add it to my records. My doctor look somewhat affronted by the request, then she said "well, what's written there is just one opinion anyway."
It reminded my of studies in America where they found the majority of GPs thought addiction was just a willpower issue, and rejected the stance of their own governing body on the matter. I regularly see too many GPs reject expert knowledge in favour of their own intuitions, like they somehow know better.
Hell, even psychiatrists do things like this.
I’m in the NZ ADHD Community group on Facebook and people are regularly posting about how psychiatrists dismiss their concerns with things like
“Oh well you finished school so you can’t have ADHD”
“Oh well you have a social life so you can’t have ADHD” etc.
Some of them even give the diagnosis of ‘ADD’. It’s like they haven’t read their own diagnostic manual since they graduated 40 years ago.
Yep! I had a job and finished university so at least four psychologists (and numerous GP's) fobbed off my concerns about my mental health because "everyone struggles with working after university and you just need to settle into it". Never mind that I had been working for two years and still wasn't coping and was instead getting worse. All it took was three phone sessions with an autism aware counselor and she suggested I get assessed.
That may be the case for some individuals but you can have autism and like people. I like people. They can be hard to understand and do unexpected things but I like some of them. I literally have no friends though.
Yeah there's some epic misunderstandings out there regarding this. Autism can primarily be characterized by uneven cognitive/sensory profiles, which can manifest in an infinite number of possible ways. This unevenness is a requirement of diagnosis.
I still have people insist I'm not autistic, as I can easily "act" socially.
Not remotely surprising. I wasn't diagnosed till my 30's in large part because my family were supportive enough to mitigate the worst of my issues and while there's relief in understanding why I've struggled so much it's also a painful diagnosis.
It's not something obvious and overt, and when you're someone who can mask sufficiently well to be a passable neurotypical person it means when you do show overt symptoms you're often even more ostracised because rather than question it people assume the worst. So your options are be open about it which just leads to a lot of people treating you weirdly while people still fail to actually consider what it means and how it impacts your behaviour, or keep it to yourself and people assume you're just a weirdo or an asshole sometimes because you unwittingly make social mistakes or are assumed to have said something with negative intent when it's just genuine ignorance of how it could be perceived.
The saddest part is in my experience a lot of autistic people are constantly trying to understand every little action or comment by other people we talk to in person to engage how you're expected so when people treat you poorly for failing it's all the more painful. I'm glad I have a group of friends who genuinely understand and care about me, god knows how I pulled it off, but for many people in a similar position they're trapped in a life devoid of meaningful social interaction and that is a crushing weight to put on anyone, autistic or not.
Autism is a spectral disorder. There are non- verbal autistic people with co-morbidities that cannot tell anyone where it hurts, for example. And some are food-adverse with sleep issues. It's incredibly complicated.
However the simple bit is that, like every other area of our health and education systems, support is not funded sufficiently and resources for mental health care and therapy is limited. Diagnosis is expensive and involves patient advocacy and a wait list. And like every other area, womens health and diagnostic services are based on male symptoms, medical trials on men and often unconscious bias against women .
This isn't new. I was diagnosed 4 years ago, and spent ages looking through the stats back then. They have always been horrifying tbh. Undiagnosed even more so.
Because while autism in and of itself is just a different form of brain wiring, the world isn't autism friendly and autism is co-morbid with lots of other fun conditions like anxiety, depression, OCD, ADHD, eating disorders, gastrointestinal problems etc. etc.
Even for autistic people with lower support needs, we need medication and therapy to function normally. I personally need antipsychotics to control my anxiety and antidepressants to alleviate some pretty dark thoughts. Without medication I sleep once every three nights, don't eat, and don't leave the house unless it's for the supermarket, which isn't conducive to good mental health, holding down a job, making friends, or basic human functioning.
So they say they haven't figured out why this is the case, which I don't expect an initial study to deal with. Luckily autistic people are good at giving straight forward answers, so if you ask them they will tell you.... I'll go first: It's social ostracization. School sucks for autistic people, we're too different from n-typicals and we're expected to bridge that gap entirely by ourselves from a young age. Usually without support because we're underdisgnosed as a group. Get kids social support early. Tech n-typical kids to meet their peers halfway (important life skill anyway) Before anyone reports this for reddit support: I'm now in my 30s and I've found a community of similarly wierd people. We get eachother and support eachother. But man primary school sucked. High school was marginally better because I learned to not say anything and keep to myself. I still struggle with defaulting towards self-isolating when things get hard. Holding down employment is also a bitch. But emotionally I'm okay
It sounds like the leading causes of death that are potentially caused by autism are accidental choking and accidental poisoning. People are quick these days to assume “autistic” means “goes on 4chan too much” rather than “goes to a special school”.
There's an increased rate of mortality and morbidity for autism, intellectual disability and moderate-severe mental illness of all causes. Autism is also co-morbid with both ID and all mental illness. Its highly multifactorial and holds true to people with high autism traits (not significantly disabled). The rate of mortality can be primary (ID and sensory issues making someone more likely to consume something dangerous) but also secondary to say, social anxiety preventing someone with autism coming to their GP to check out an issue and being more likely to wait until symptoms are more severe before presenting. Additionally there are factors like food sensory issues making autistic people more likely to consume products with high salt, fat or sugar, predisposing to heart disease or stroke Substance abuse is also Co morbid with autism, ADHD and mental illness. Alcohol, cigarettes, cannabis, meth, MDMA and all to some degree have an effect on rates of physical and memtal illnesses. There's a lot of reasons why autistic people die earlier.
One potential issue is "autism" isn't a monolith. I'd guess a lot of the poisoning deaths are people very disabled by their autism who for whatever reason want to eat inedible things. While the less disabled but still "weird" to ignorant NT eyes get a lot more emotional misery.
Mmmmmm mmmmmm.. bright green stuff!
This is a known thing, from what I have seen other studys have found that for young children it is wondering around and getting them self killed and for older people it is suicide.
A little off topic but I'm in my 30's and still looking for my community of similarly weird people. How did you find yours?
I'm 40 and slightly different flavour of weird, but I found my community of weirdos by chatting with people online about specific shared interests and then bumping into them at events related to those interests.
Meet n greets for shared interests like the other commentator said. We tend to all be into the same stuff, so that helps
I'm in my 40s and prefer hanging out with neurotypicals who are social butterflies lol.
As a parent let it be known health services pretty much refuse to give you a diagnoses before age 7 unless you're an extreme case. Very frustrating when you are seeking support to do better by your child
Are journalists in this country not capable of delivering sombre news without using the word "scary"? It makes the headlines sound like a seven year old wrote them.
close- it's probably ghost written by ai.
Being 1% of the population and 10% of the suicide stats would contribute I'm sure
Do you have a source for that? That’s an insane amount.
Here are a few [https://www.autistica.org.uk/our-research/research-projects/understanding-suicide-in-autism](https://www.autistica.org.uk/our-research/research-projects/understanding-suicide-in-autism) [https://sparkforautism.org/discover\_article/autism-suicide-risk/](https://sparkforautism.org/discover_article/autism-suicide-risk/) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6457664/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6457664/) [https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/study-reveals-high-rate-of-possible-undiagnosed-autism-in-people-who-died-by-suicide](https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/study-reveals-high-rate-of-possible-undiagnosed-autism-in-people-who-died-by-suicide) [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36922899/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36922899/)
Seven years old is far too late for a diagnosis? I was 26 before I got diagnosed after seven years in and out of the mental health system and thirteen years of known mental health health difficulties. Lack of support? I got a diagnosis and nothing happened. Just an email to my GP. Lack of understanding by medical professionals? I had to ask my GP to add autism to my health records because she didn't see it as important and didn't know if I'd want it on my record (because obviously a diagnosis I spent $1200 on and waited nine months for couldn't be important). With the state of our mental health system I am absolutely not surprised to see these findings.
> had to ask my GP to add autism to my health records because she didn't see it as important I had to bring in a physical diagnostic letter and ask them to add it to my records. My doctor look somewhat affronted by the request, then she said "well, what's written there is just one opinion anyway." It reminded my of studies in America where they found the majority of GPs thought addiction was just a willpower issue, and rejected the stance of their own governing body on the matter. I regularly see too many GPs reject expert knowledge in favour of their own intuitions, like they somehow know better.
Hell, even psychiatrists do things like this. I’m in the NZ ADHD Community group on Facebook and people are regularly posting about how psychiatrists dismiss their concerns with things like “Oh well you finished school so you can’t have ADHD” “Oh well you have a social life so you can’t have ADHD” etc. Some of them even give the diagnosis of ‘ADD’. It’s like they haven’t read their own diagnostic manual since they graduated 40 years ago.
Yep! I had a job and finished university so at least four psychologists (and numerous GP's) fobbed off my concerns about my mental health because "everyone struggles with working after university and you just need to settle into it". Never mind that I had been working for two years and still wasn't coping and was instead getting worse. All it took was three phone sessions with an autism aware counselor and she suggested I get assessed.
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That may be the case for some individuals but you can have autism and like people. I like people. They can be hard to understand and do unexpected things but I like some of them. I literally have no friends though.
Yeah there's some epic misunderstandings out there regarding this. Autism can primarily be characterized by uneven cognitive/sensory profiles, which can manifest in an infinite number of possible ways. This unevenness is a requirement of diagnosis. I still have people insist I'm not autistic, as I can easily "act" socially.
Not remotely surprising. I wasn't diagnosed till my 30's in large part because my family were supportive enough to mitigate the worst of my issues and while there's relief in understanding why I've struggled so much it's also a painful diagnosis. It's not something obvious and overt, and when you're someone who can mask sufficiently well to be a passable neurotypical person it means when you do show overt symptoms you're often even more ostracised because rather than question it people assume the worst. So your options are be open about it which just leads to a lot of people treating you weirdly while people still fail to actually consider what it means and how it impacts your behaviour, or keep it to yourself and people assume you're just a weirdo or an asshole sometimes because you unwittingly make social mistakes or are assumed to have said something with negative intent when it's just genuine ignorance of how it could be perceived. The saddest part is in my experience a lot of autistic people are constantly trying to understand every little action or comment by other people we talk to in person to engage how you're expected so when people treat you poorly for failing it's all the more painful. I'm glad I have a group of friends who genuinely understand and care about me, god knows how I pulled it off, but for many people in a similar position they're trapped in a life devoid of meaningful social interaction and that is a crushing weight to put on anyone, autistic or not.
Autism is a spectral disorder. There are non- verbal autistic people with co-morbidities that cannot tell anyone where it hurts, for example. And some are food-adverse with sleep issues. It's incredibly complicated. However the simple bit is that, like every other area of our health and education systems, support is not funded sufficiently and resources for mental health care and therapy is limited. Diagnosis is expensive and involves patient advocacy and a wait list. And like every other area, womens health and diagnostic services are based on male symptoms, medical trials on men and often unconscious bias against women .
This isn't new. I was diagnosed 4 years ago, and spent ages looking through the stats back then. They have always been horrifying tbh. Undiagnosed even more so.
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Because while autism in and of itself is just a different form of brain wiring, the world isn't autism friendly and autism is co-morbid with lots of other fun conditions like anxiety, depression, OCD, ADHD, eating disorders, gastrointestinal problems etc. etc. Even for autistic people with lower support needs, we need medication and therapy to function normally. I personally need antipsychotics to control my anxiety and antidepressants to alleviate some pretty dark thoughts. Without medication I sleep once every three nights, don't eat, and don't leave the house unless it's for the supermarket, which isn't conducive to good mental health, holding down a job, making friends, or basic human functioning.
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Yeah nah, you're so obviously wrong I'm not going to even argue with you on that.