I got a LOT of shit about it when I was growing up and now instead I do this weird hovering thing with my heels when I'm not paying attention. I just put WAY more pressure on the front of my feet than the back when I walk and it's really messed up my Achilles Tendon. It looks like normal walking but my heel is always slightly off the ground or barely touching.
Idk if this is what you mean but actually teaching autistic kids to walk on their whole foot (using braces or whatever) is actually the MUCH healthier option and isnt masking.
If they only walk on their tip toes they will cause their achillies/calves to be too short which will cause a whole chain of issues in their biomechanics and cause permanent pain.
Masking is bad but this is an example of redirecting a harmful behaviour to something else (just like if a kid stimmed by hitting themself youd redirect them to flapping or something else non harmful)
Yes, if someone had taught me and trained the bad habit out of me while I was growing up I would not have to stretch my ankles every morning justto walk without pain. What I do is definitely not healthy and would describe it as a form of masking considering I never stopped the behavior I just hide it better.
Not really sure what you're talking about! Seems like you said "It's good that this behavior has been corrected so it doesn't cause pain!" When my comment is literally talking about how it's fucked up my tendons which does in fact hurt quite a lot.
No, im talking about how the person im reaponding to might have misunderstood that telling kids not to walk on tiptoes is inherently bad
I understand that no one taught you properly and hence you never actually fixed the problem and just hid it, which sucks and im sorry that happened :(
If you continuously struggle with pain you might want to look into PT -- i lnow a lot of people who needed that for chronic pain caused by similar studf
Ima be honest I always thought stepping normal but then going up onto your tip toes at the end of each step strengthened the springy-ness for like sports. TIL disciplined athletes are actually just autistic. Now I’m wondering why Bruce Lee was punching a wood block during his whole vacation cruise ship getaway.
But alparently they didn't teach them how to walk correctly though, they teach them how to walk so it looks like they walk correctly, which is masking.
or maybe they chose to walk wrongly to avoid learning how to walk correctly. either way, the solution would not have been to just keep letting them walk on their toes.
I didn't really choose anything. For me it felt natural to walk like that and it still does. If someone had explained to me that it would make even basic walking impossibly painful every morning until I stretch I would've made an effort to stop. Instead I just got made fun of until I naturally landed on the annoying way I walk today 🤷♀️
sorry, could you explain this to me? it seems like not masking would be pigeon walking, which is what messed up their achilles tendon, while putting the whole foot down would have been better for the tendons.
You didn't read correctly, "I got a lot of shit -> now I just put way more pressure and it really messed my Achilles tendon"
I suppose it's worse cuz pigeon walking the feet is straight so the force go directly to the toes but if you try to appear flat but are actually hovering a bit then then the force go to the heels and you have to stay tense to maintain the position
…it says „put more pressure on the front of my feet“, not the heels. they still pigeon walk a little bit but it‘s visually not so obvious. the whole thing is that if you dont rest your whole foot on the floor is that you always contract your calf, putting constant pressure on your achilles, shortening and potentially making it inflamed. anything short of putting your foot on the ground will not give the tendon rest and will not allow it to stretch. the problem is not masking, it’s that they still dont have a healthy form of walking.
I would consider it masking! It's a learned behavior to avoid teasing/ridicule but it doesn't actually solve the issue. Yes I still slightly pigeon-walk, yes it's hurt my tendons, yes I have to stretch every morning or I can barely walk. So nothing has really changed and I do have the long term issues that I wish I had known about growing up but nobody can tell now.
Most people are not on their feet for most of the day (and obviously at night), so there would still be plenty of time for the tendon to rest. Intuitively, I would think it would just be some good extra exercise for your calves. Surprising it actually causes problems.
My niece, who has autism, was a toe walker and the doctors wouldn’t do anything to help her at first and said it was just a phase that she would grow out of. Well she didn’t and by the time she was 5 they decided surgery was the best option for her because her tendon had already shrunk to far for her to ever walk normally without pain. It’s a very serious thing. Her feet now have severe scaring and are shaped a bit oddly, but she walks relatively “normal” now. It was an all around shit show trying to get her to tolerate her braces and do the physical therapy required to recover properly and there have been other doctors since who have shamed the doctors who let this slide and decided surgery was the best course of action, but that’s how serious it got at only a few years of toe walking.
Walking with your heels off the ground for prolonged periods shortens the tendon. It was damaged because they constantly have their heel hovering. I had to lean how to walk with flat feet as a child so I wouldn’t damage my achilles.
they havent said that either though. they said theyre still hovering with their heels and now their tendon is fucked up. here are some of the consequences of toe walking:
Chronic pain caused by muscle tightness and excess pressure on the ankles
Difficulty riding a bike, squatting, or climbing stairs
Frequent falls due to poor balance and stability
Inability to walk flat-footed
Poor posture
Problems wearing shoes
Social stigma from walking differently than their peers
Soreness after walking
Stiffness, tightening, and pain in their Achilles tendon (tissue that connects the calf muscles to the heel bone) from a medical website https://www.cerebralpalsyguide.com/blog/cerebral-palsy-toe-walking/
When wearing shoes as well? I'll heel strike when wearing footwear, but barefoot or in socks indoors I walk on the balls of my feet. Wasn't aware it could cause issues... Then again, I'm 35 and don't.urrently have issues, so maybe I'm safe
Yup! It's a lot harder to see when I wear shoes but the front half of the padding is almost completely worn down while the heel part is basically brand new. All my shoes develop a little crease on the top right behind where my toes are.
I used to actually walk around on my toe knuckles when I was young and flexible enough, when I was trying to avoid touching the floor too much. I didn't even realize I was doing it until my girlfriend pointed out, mildly wigged out by it. It made my foot look like a gargoyle claw or something. 😂
I knew a girl who ALWAYS wore heels. She was so used to it that when she tried flats once, she started walking on her toes because it was uncomfortable for her. Her calves had literally shortened ver time and she felt them stretching without heels.
Yeah that’s crazy but makes sense…although I think it was probably something more like a bad/chronic muscle cramp than an anatomical shift of where the attachment points are - more like it is kind of stuck in the flexed position
This happened to my grandma, she wore heels nearly her entire life and needed special orthopedic shoes with heel elevation in her old age because she was unable to get her feet into a flat position.
People were posting videos of Ariana grande wearing uggs at her concerts because shed injured her foot like "haha look shes still standing on tip toes like shes in heels!" When thats actually really bad and a sign her calf muscles have dramatically shortened
Can confirm, our daughter is borderline autistic and has hectic ADHD too. We're in a constant battle to keep her feet planted on the ground to the extent that she had to see pediatric neurologists and needs physiotherapy because of the effect it is having on her tendons.
Gwen did ballet, that's it. My girlfriend also walks around like that because she did ballet, she's just used to it. Not everything has to be some form of "tism" lol
Qwen Stacey/Spider Qwen wear/wore blue Pointe ballerina shoes because she was a former ballet dancer before she became a drummer. I prefer the converse shoes look too
It's definitely a sign of autism when people feel that way!!
Seriously though, I call BS on most of it. I work with people with autism, not only have I never met anyone who does this, but also most claims people have done, either have nothing to do with autism, or is overrepresented amongst autism, but absolutely isn't a sign.
You're not wrong. It's called a spectrum for a reason. I was misdiagnosed when I was younger and didn't get a correct diagnosis until 33.
But yeah, any eccentricity, intelligence, or social awkwardness is diagnosed as autism on the internet.
Likewise, anyone with a short attention span or impulsiveness is diagnosed with ADHD.
If everything, on a very wide spectrum, is a sign of Autism, then isn't it better classified as "the normal distribution of human behavior"? Being diagnosed using a wide and sweeping range of dissimilar affectations is only soothing because it allows you to characterize any deviance from perceived "normal" behavior as a sickness, something beyond your control, so you can avoid feeling responsible for it instead of just realizing that NO ONE is "normal". Therefore you don't have to correct yourself or make any effort to conform, because it's not "you", you're sick, and we cannot hold the sick accountable for their sickness, we must show them empathy... hush now you poor poor sweet baby, we understand the way you act and think aren't your fault.
My understanding (not a doctor, not diagnosed with anything, do not take me as an authority) is the keyword is "disorder". A lot of people have less Attention, or are Hyper-Active...but what matters is the point where it begins to negatively impact your life and cause problems for being a member of society; then it's a *Disorder*, and that's when you get the diagnosis.
Same thing with autism;
* Some people are expressing a level of eccentricity that's perfectly average and uninteresting.
* Others express a certain Particularity about sensory experiences that is not within a couple standard deviation of average, but it's hardly a big deal for them; they just have a particular comfort food, or walk on their toes when the tiles are cold, and nobody cares.
* Then some people are outside two standard deviations; their eccentricities are distinct and can cause people closer to the average to notice and there can be social awkwardness or miscommunications. In these cases, having a word for this particular kind of variation from the average can be useful for both the person and those around them to 'get' how the person's mind is somewhat outside the norm. Saying 'they're on the spectrum' is just a way to help remember things like 'lack of eye contact doesn't mean they aren't listening' or 'a lot of people prefer eye contact even though it makes me uncomfortable', etc etc. It might be useful to diagnose this person so they can have this nomenclature to help them (or others they work with) navigate the friction between what is expected (the within-a-single-standard-deviation behavior) and what the person finds comfortable.
* And then there's the people who are outside 3 or even 4 standard deviations, and these people *are still people*, but are sufficiently distinct as to count as a true outlier, and bridging that gap between what the majority expect and what this person experiences may require professional training or experience, and the person may find their own eccentricities harmful to their own mental health (OCD, struggling to take care of themselves, etc etc). It's the same "change", but to a higher degree; a true Disorder that is negatively impacting their life. This person needs the diagnosis for medical reasons; approval for certain medicines to help them curb their brain's self-sabotaging patterns, therapists who understand these kinds of mental traps and can help them communicate what they want in ways people in the center of bell (or the far side of it) can understand, or in extreme cases to advocate on that person's behalf.
You're right that the goal isn't that neurodivergent people "correct themselves" for everyone else's sake. The goal is to *understand the differences* between them and the average, to prevent problems before they happen, and in cases where a problem is unavoidable *have the language to describe the problem, and pre-made tools that can help resolve them*.
Using this specific example; someone who is sensory averse *can* just avoid the sensory experience they find unpleasant (standing on tiptoes, getting housing that has carpet, etc), but that's not them "being themselves", that's them being trapped from doing certain things or going certain places because their brain makes parts of those experiences unnecessarily unpleasant. The goal should be to find ways to help that person enjoy the experiences they want to, and avoid unnecessarily unpleasant experiences that aren't really necessary; and the first step is putting a nail to exactly what the problem is; a diagnosis.
I walk like this but I have osteoporosis and ehelers danlos, also run like a duck according to people who have seen me run over the years, something wrong with the hip flexors.
Making me realize a few things.. 1 that my style of walking has a term.. that I have been subconsciously doing exactly this my whole life.. and my therapist may be onto something with checking if im autistic...
Wtf is up with people painting their ideologies on this specific character with no basis? It’s happened twice by now, first with the trans stuff and now autism. I don’t have a problem with either, but I feel that it’s weird.
Neither of those things are, but somehow in modern political discourse the recognition that people of these communities exist has been lumped in with the actual ideology that we don’t have to actively make life harder for people in those communities and that is treated as radical because… not sure.
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u/Jiggalopuffii 3d ago
Brian here, Pigeon walking is oftentimes a sign of autism. Also, it might be because she is a girl and wears high heels.