I'm a brain specialist - here are 10 tell-tale signs of autism in my behavior that made me seek an assessment

A woman revealed the 10 tell-tale signs that made her seek an autism assessment- including 'shutdowns after social interactions'.

Brain training specialist Emilie Leyes, from New York, revealed she was diagnosed with autism last year after she noticed some 'autistic presenting traits' which prompted her to get assessed.

Taking to her Instagram account, Emilie shared a clip, which gained over 12,000 views, detailing the traits to look out for.

The TikToker urged her followers to take a 'RAADS-R test' if they resonate with the traits 'to get an understanding' of the spectrum disorder.

Here FEMAIL lists Emilie's top 10 signs that suggested she might be autistic...

Brain training specialist Emilie Leyes, from New York, revealed the 10 tell-tale signs that made her seek an autism assessment- including 'shutdowns after social interactions'

1. Stimming

She said: 'Number one stimming, I am constantly moving my body. I feel like I cannot regulate or process information or emotions unless I am stimming in some way.

'If you are not familiar it is repetitive body movements which are self-soothing. When I was younger, I twirled my hair for hours and hours and hours and now I fidget with my popsockets and I still cannot sit still.'

2. Meltdowns

She said: 'I have always had the hardest time when plans change or when expectations change because I have such a rigid view in my head of what certain things are going to be like or what certain days are going to look like.

'If that gets disrupted in anyway it would cause meltdowns, confusion, and anger. Even if it is a simple little change, it is really hard for me to process that.'

3. Intense sensory experiences

She added: 'Number three is intense sensory experiences. I am very sensitive to light and sound; I feel like I can hear the electricity and that's a lot sometimes.

'I feel like I get dysregulated if I am not wearing comfortable clothing, I cannot wear anything that touches my armpits, I didn't wear jeans until I was a teenager.'

4. Shutdowns

Emilie said: 'Social interactions are really draining for me. I am a social person and I love talking to people but they take so much energy out of me that I often shut down after big social events or if I have a lot of stuff going on in one day or one week, I need days to recover from that with minimal contact with humans.'

Taking to her Instagram @emilieleyes Emilie shared a clip, which gained over 12,000 views, detailing the traits to look out for

5. Hyper fixations

She said: 'I have always had really intense special interests, where I become really obsessed about a topic, I become hyperfixated on it, it's all I can think about, it's all I want to talk about, I get frustrated when I am not able to talk about it and I observe information about it really quickly.

'My relationship with my special interests is really strong, of course everybody has interests, but autistic people tend to relate to their interests on a different level of intensity.'

6. Intense need to plan

Emilie revealed she has always had an 'intense need to plan and prepare' for every occasion.

She added: 'I have to feel 100 percent prepared for a situation that I am going into, so I mentally rehearse conversations in the mirror before I go out and interact with people.

'I study the menu of restaurants before I go so that I don't get overwhelmed by the choices.

'I literally studied for middle school. I read a book on how to survive middle school and I read it like 10 time the summer before sixth grade because I felt like I needed to have enough information to feel safe, like I could handle it.'

7. Masking

Emilie revealed she used masking and had hyper awareness of her behaviour in social interactions.

She said: 'I am super high masking, which means I camouflage and hide my autistic traits and a part of that experience is when I am in social interactions, I am really hyper aware of how I am interacting with people.

'I agonize on whether I am making eye contact the right way, I don't know which eye to look at, I don't know when to look away. I am really aware of my body when I am talking to people, feeling really exposed and uncomfortable.'

8. Repeating phrases

'I have always latched onto phrases from TV shows and people of all neurotypes quote TV shows all the time, but I have found that when I am watching a show and I hear people word things in a different way I will repeat in social interactions because it feels safe,' Emilie explained.

9. Taking things literally

Emilie claimed she does understand nuance and metaphors, but she takes everything literally.

She explained: 'My brain always goes to the literal explanation first. 

'So, the phrase kill two birds with one stone, it's an expression, I know what it means, but my brain automatically visualises two birds dying.'

10. Always feeling different

She said: 'I have always felt different to people around me, before I knew I was autistic I was so confused why everything seemed easier for everybody else, I didn't understand why it was so simple to just like decide what to make for dinner and then go do it.

'Or how people could just have the social battery to get through the day. I always felt ashamed that I couldn’t do as much as people around me, and I felt like there was this rule book or handbook that I haven't received to teach me how to be a person.

'When in reality, I was just given a different operating system, and now that I know I am autistic it is so much easier to accommodate myself and accept myself.'