What is Autism?

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Hi everyone! I have a very deep and challenging question, yet I thought it might be worth asking.

I'm a person with Asperger's Syndrome who (albeit high-functioning) has some idiosyncrasies such as taking things too literally and feeling uncomfortable around subjectivity and poor grammar.

Granted all these traits, I'd always felt this inward confusion and dislike for the over-categorization of autism. For myself, I'd had many childhood traumas (mental/physical) and I struggle with IBS to this day.

I considered that 'well, since I was diagnosed at 7, what do the doctors know? Couldn't they be wrong?'

I don't view autism as inherently bad, just subjective and confusing. As psychology is a soft science that tends to generalize things, I have this feeling of detachment towards my label.

Couldn't there be other root causal factors that we aren't aware of (physical/mental) and shouldn't there be more research into questioning the cause of these characteristics and behaviours?

I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist or anything. I just tend to be overly skeptical. I also don't mean to project my views onto anyone but rather see if people may have similar thoughts, or if anyone has some counter-thoughts. I'm mostly seeking general discourse and thoughts on these matters rather than actual answers.


Thanks for reading and I appreciate your time! Much love and stay awesome!

You are right. Autism is a syndrome and the diagnosis is made by observation of signs and symptoms. There are many reasons that can explain "Autistic behaviors" including things like mitochondrial dysfunction, brain injury, environmental toxins, changes in michrobiome, catatonia, and many other things. So it is important to look at all of these things if the resources are available to look at them. But there are people who are genuinely different in their neurotype and it is not a result of one of these other factors. So yes, actual "pure Autism" is a thing, it does exist, but "Autistic type behaviors" can be because of many different reasons. But doctors don't usually take the time and care to dig deep and many people cannot afford to do that anyway, so yes, just because you are "Autistic" does not mean that there is one definite cause. All they are doing is noticing the symptoms and signs and assigning a catch all label to them. But regardless of the reason for the symptoms and signs, having that label allows you to access resources that you would not be able to access otherwise and those resources could be a great help to you. So I think it's better to have that label than to not have it if you are struggling.

I hear what you’re saying. This recent book may answer a lot of your questions and put your mind at rest. If you buy it, get this green cover version, the blue one is for diagnosis professionals - though I aim to read that too soon

https://www.routledge.com/Is-This-Autis ... l_EALw_wcB

today science defines autism as "uneven neurological development". this can of course present itself in as many different ways as there people who experience it. Diagnosis is becoming less "behavioral" observation and professionals who have recent understanding of autism are more likely to look at the ways our neurology differs from "normal development" We are born with our neurology and we die with it. We can learn ways to cope or "work around" many of our struggles once we figure out the ways our 'brand" of autism affects us. It really is different for each of us, the similarity is in the fact that it is all some form of irregular/unusual/different neurological development.