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Jinks
Deinonychus
Deinonychus

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Joined: 31 Aug 2012
Age: 42
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18 Apr 2013, 4:07 am

littlebee wrote:
Jinks wrote:
I think I know what you are talking about, though bear in mind that autism by its definition cannot be "late onset" as such - if someone is autistic they were always autistic (unless symptoms were caused by brain injury). However, it is not uncommon for there to be few enough signs in childhood for it to go under the radar, whereupon a parent might find themselves with a teenage or adult child who has just been diagnosed and then have to come to terms with the fact that their child is not neurotypical and has more challenges ahead of them than they had anticipated. Perhaps that is the situation you are talking about?

While I can see mild autistic symptoms in my childhood in hindsight, they were not severe enough for anyone to think anything of them, especially because AS was unknown when I was a child (I am in my 30s). I was just a quiet bookworm kid. However, as an adult, I struggle enormously with day-to-day life because of my autism. Being able to manage as a child who is looked after is one thing, and living as an independent adult quite another, so sometimes the extent of the symptoms are not revealed until increased social and practical demands are made.


One of the main reasons I joined this forum was to inquire into this subject, as I met quite a few people on the spectrum at various aspie events and, to my dismay, it became more and more obvious to me that many were shorting their own developmental potential and imo that of others by not focusing enough on the environmental aspect, and what you have written seems to me to be an example of this. Such as: how do you know that the symptoms you began to experience were because of being 'autistic' rather than the result of a unique and gifted brain coping with environmental stress or trauma? Yes, the way the brain was surely played into the way it adapted, but there is no way of knowing if some other people who are so called nt's did not have approx. the same kind of brain but were able to adjust better because they figured out how to cope and/or were exposed to less traumatic experience coupled with perhaps a different kind of parenting. Love, little bee.


Hi littlebee,

Well, of course I can't know that for sure. However, in my case learning about autism was an enormous relief, as it explained my life in great detail and I finally understood why I had spent my teenage and adult life in a state of complete bewilderment and anxiety. Where do you draw the line between "gifted and socially awkward child" and "autistic person"? I'd say the line needs to be drawn where the difficulties become disabling, and as they are disabling for me (social difficulties, inability to cope in environments with lots of people or travel alone, etc), I consider myself autistic, even though the associated difficulties only began to arise in late childhood. Up until high school I had a very quiet and easy childhood with few demands made on me, and I was a very quiet and passive child who never spoke up if there was a problem. So of course parents with no knowledge about autism had nothing to feel concerned by with only minor, harmless issues like obsessive hobbies and physical clumsiness to go on.

I wonder why you feel that people identifying themselves as autistic is "shorting their development potential"? I don't see it that way at all. Actually for me it is the opposite - I found receiving an autism diagnosis extremely freeing. It lifted the stress and self-blame I put myself under trying to behave like a neurotypical person (and failing) and for the first time I feel like I am able to begin making friends and do things I couldn't before because I am able to explain to others why I might seem a little strange or do things wrong. I appreciate that some people might use having autism as an excuse not to make a full effort with life, but that is down to the personality of the individual, not whether they consider themselves autistic or not - and if they are predisposed to do that, if it wasn't autism, it would be something else. :)



littlebee
Veteran
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Joined: 8 Mar 2013
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18 Apr 2013, 3:20 pm

Jinks wrote:
littlebee wrote:
Jinks wrote:
I think I know what you are talking about, though bear in mind that autism by its definition cannot be "late onset" as such - if someone is autistic they were always autistic (unless symptoms were caused by brain injury). However, it is not uncommon for there to be few enough signs in childhood for it to go under the radar, whereupon a parent might find themselves with a teenage or adult child who has just been diagnosed and then have to come to terms with the fact that their child is not neurotypical and has more challenges ahead of them than they had anticipated. Perhaps that is the situation you are talking about?

While I can see mild autistic symptoms in my childhood in hindsight, they were not severe enough for anyone to think anything of them, especially because AS was unknown when I was a child (I am in my 30s). I was just a quiet bookworm kid. However, as an adult, I struggle enormously with day-to-day life because of my autism. Being able to manage as a child who is looked after is one thing, and living as an independent adult quite another, so sometimes the extent of the symptoms are not revealed until increased social and practical demands are made.


One of the main reasons I joined this forum was to inquire into this subject, as I met quite a few people on the spectrum at various aspie events and, to my dismay, it became more and more obvious to me that many were shorting their own developmental potential and imo that of others by not focusing enough on the environmental aspect, and what you have written seems to me to be an example of this. Such as: how do you know that the symptoms you began to experience were because of being 'autistic' rather than the result of a unique and gifted brain coping with environmental stress or trauma? Yes, the way the brain was surely played into the way it adapted, but there is no way of knowing if some other people who are so called nt's did not have approx. the same kind of brain but were able to adjust better because they figured out how to cope and/or were exposed to less traumatic experience coupled with perhaps a different kind of parenting. Love, little bee.


Hi littlebee,

Well, of course I can't know that for sure. However, in my case learning about autism was an enormous relief, as it explained my life in great detail and I finally understood why I had spent my teenage and adult life in a state of complete bewilderment and anxiety. Where do you draw the line between "gifted and socially awkward child" and "autistic person"? I'd say the line needs to be drawn where the difficulties become disabling, and as they are disabling for me (social difficulties, inability to cope in environments with lots of people or travel alone, etc), I consider myself autistic, even though the associated difficulties only began to arise in late childhood. Up until high school I had a very quiet and easy childhood with few demands made on me, and I was a very quiet and passive child who never spoke up if there was a problem. So of course parents with no knowledge about autism had nothing to feel concerned by with only minor, harmless issues like obsessive hobbies and physical clumsiness to go on.

I wonder why you feel that people identifying themselves as autistic is "shorting their development potential"? I don't see it that way at all. Actually for me it is the opposite - I found receiving an autism diagnosis extremely freeing. It lifted the stress and self-blame I put myself under trying to behave like a neurotypical person (and failing) and for the first time I feel like I am able to begin making friends and do things I couldn't before because I am able to explain to others why I might seem a little strange or do things wrong. I appreciate that some people might use having autism as an excuse not to make a full effort with life, but that is down to the personality of the individual, not whether they consider themselves autistic or not - and if they are predisposed to do that, if it wasn't autism, it would be something else. :)


Thanks for the response and trying to communicate, but wow, you did not really respond to what I was saying except to say that you could not know for sure if environmental factors played into your experience. That to me is just a hedge, as obviously environmental factors have played into everyones experience..

I never said that identifying (meaning naming) oneself as autistic could not be helpful. It was and is very helpful to me, but I have a different theory of autism than many others. Yes, the personality of certain people, meaning in effect to a large degree how environmental factors shaped him (but also genetics) can have something to do with whether that person uses the label of autism as an excuse/ escape or not, but I see the autistic culture in many ways promoting the tendency to not look at the role environment plays in autism, which role imo is stunning and significant..

For instance re the autistic---nt distinction--there is no real evidence (that I know of) that many so called nt's do not have approx the same kind of brains as autistics. Yes, something like the autistic gait may indicate a certain kind of genetic brain function, but many high functioning autistics do not have that and/or if they did worked through it. You cannot exactly say a person could not work through it because he does not have the same kind of brain as someone else. By the way I used to be a preschool teacher and lots of kids walk 'funny.'Maybe autistic is why and/or brain damage, but maybe he did not want to because of psychological factors, or maybe a bit of both. The point is I see people who are in some ways psychologically crippled for whatever reason (but surely a large environmental factor, meaning in short traumatic experiences plus the way they were parented) using their autism as a buffer and an excuse. To me that is sad because basically it can serve to perpetrate horrible suffering and in many ways keep people from developing.

I am assuming you really do not know why you are autistic. Creative minds tend to encapsulate in certain ways, so it could be a result of early childhood trauma and various aspects of how you were parenting. I understand that looking at this kind of thing is not very pleasant, but I am writing from the perspective of deep personal inquiry, and it has not been and is not particularly pleasant for me..I do not like looking at the environmental factor either, but I have to in order to be true to reality and to learn and to grow, meaning develop.

This was hard to write.