Not Autistic Not ADHD But Not Normal

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Autistic people, but also some other types of people who are developmentally different, tend not to have the same sense of social dogmas as those of us who are typically developed.

(A dogma is an idea which is accepted as objective fact.)

This is because there are certain times in childhood when most of us are working on pretty much the same social skills at the exact same time. We neurotypical people learn how to read faces at the same time, how to lie at the same time, how to conceal our emotions at the same time. If someone has a very different kind of brain, they could be working on how to process errors before they work on face reading. This would make a child not even look at a face, but spend time, say, organizing toys, or criticizing others who played "wrong." Autistic people do build social skills, but they tend to work in a more mechanical way than neurotypical people's skills. They notice different things and act on things in a different way. Over time, it does seem to be pretty functional.

It is not just autistic people who are like this. I have several ADHD people in my family and they are like this as well. My mother has bipolar disorder, which she does not treat properly, I would say. She is probably the most different person I have ever known. Asking her opinion on something is like looking at the world inverted and upside down. If you asked her what is it like to be a woman, or a white person, or a human being, she'd tell you something or other so weird you'd want to sit down and watch Sesame Street for awhile.

I know too little about ADHD to venture an opinion on that, but you do come across as Autistic in the historic sense, as described by such as Aaron Rosannoff, and Humm and Wadsworth, whose personality scale would have been big news around the time Leo Kanner wrote of a handful of kids he considered to fit the bill.

Let me be precise here; Kanner’s subjects appeared to be Autistic, as it was then understood, but they were only a tiny sample of a population of millions who fit that description.

Now we have the ludicrous situation in which researchers treat autistic and autism as if they are interchangeable, even thought the definition of autism has been so widened that the majority are not at all autistic, which is no longer even tested for!

If your research engine works, try looking at the Chandler & Macleod 5 minute on-line test on this site, from many years ago. The full test was developed from the work of Humm and Wadsworth, which was a large population study of Rosanoff’s Theory of Personality (available on google science) and has been widely used by recruiters worldwide, to which I was subjected in my 20s and was the first indication I had that I am Autistic (it wasn’t in the news so much back then).

Though the on-line test no longer works, it did provide a readout of each user’s characteristics, and you may well find some that match your own assessment. Among the most interesting outcomes is that the majority of those diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome were as likely to be as strongly Epileptoid (another aspect of the psyche, along with Paranoid, Manic, etc., which together determine one’s personality) as Autistic. This would be a fantastically useful research tool, but the “experts” of the “autism” research industry refuse to even consider the possibility of using it, so don’t expect any enlightenment on this score from any clinician.

I kept saying I was weird until I realized I’m just different, and that’s okay. I was also evaluated for ADHD, autism, etc., but nothing came out of it. In the end, what drained me the most was not knowing what to believe. I came across Fairland Recovery Center (I live in Georgia) through a recommendation and, even though they’re mostly known for addiction treatment, I found out they also offer counseling for mental health. That helped me accept that I don’t need to fit into a medical category to deserve support.

Asperger's had been shoved down my throat all my life (well, since the age of but I've always felt I was more than Asperger's. Despite being the only one here diagnosed so fking early in life, I didn't really know much about it except that I had this communication disorder that my peers didn't. I was filled with false stereotypes and assumptions and shame about it, and was just conditioned by society to feel ashamed and embarrassed.

Then when I got to my late 20s I began to read up more on ADHD and that described me better than Asperger's. All these little thoughts and behaviours I had that no book about Asperger's really explained (if anything it contradicted), suddenly all made sense. The RSD. The hyper-socialness while being shy. The ability to understand body language yet act too impulsively to respond appropriately. The difficulty in learning and retaining facts. The short-lived interests. The hyperactivity as a child (bouncing off the furniture, shouting and laughing a lot, etc). The list goes on. These traits weren't really explained in any book.

I received my ADHD diagnosis at 31. Way too late for someone who exhibited so many obvious ADHD symptoms all my life.
But even so, I was still diagnosed with something else (Asperger's) so I didn't really slip through the cracks as such.

You are probably in the clear then, as every genuine autistic I've encountered (they are pretty rare) was delighted to be so, and didn’t give a stuff about any stigma. Of course, I’m going by the historic definition; nothing to do with “being autistic = having autism”.