(no subject)

[bizamoogie.livejournal.com]

is it possible to have an autistic personality if you yourself are not autistic?

Comments

[qilora.livejournal.com]

i believe it is possible to have an autistic person in-house, even if the fronting person(s) are not autistic.

Ulla & Co.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Well, it kind of depends on how exactly you're defining "autistic".

Real autism's no more like the media stereotype of "autism" than real multiplicity's like the media stereotype of that. I'm autistic, but a person would have to be pretty close to me and know some things about autism in order to guess it. One irritating thing is when people who find out say "You don't look autistic" - meaning I don't look like the fiction-based stereotype in their minds. Well no, I don't look like Dustin Hoffman. As far as I know, though, Dustin Hoffman isn't really autistic, so that's neither here nor there.

My 'brother' Crist-Erui, who shares this body, often acts more stereotypically autistic than I do. He can talk, but we didn't find that out till our 40's because he never did till then, and he still doesn't talk much - a word or two every few days, no more than that. He's very shy, has extremely keen senses but apparently a higher-than-usual pain threshold, is deathly afraid of certain kinds of noise, only will eat certain kinds of food, and spends much of his corporeal time playing his own inexplicable games with stones, seeds, etcetera.

However, his twin Kír adamantly insists that Crist-Erui is not autistic, that he himself is not, and that if I want to identify myself under that label, it's my choice, but not to presume to make that choice for them. So I don't. Actually, my reason for hanging on to that label - rather than rejecting it along with a lot of other unwelcome labels from the past - is a political one: if everyone who could "pass" as neurotypical does so, what happens to the ones who can't "pass", who get left behind?

As a result of this, I'm the only autistic person in our House (note: I'm not a "personality"; none of us are "personalities". We are people.) Whatever our shy, silent, notably-odd 'brother' may be, we don't call him autistic - and certainly no one's calling Kír so, even though of the three of us, he's had the most difficulty getting his senses and coordination straightened out.

Now, if autism is defined as a physical difference - a genetic predisposition to certain kinds of neurological variances - then presumably all three of us are autistic. It may be one of those variances that causes the tendency to multiplicity, in fact, because the proportion of multiples seems to be unusually high in the autistic community (and vice versa.) However, there's no way to be sure, because the research isn't anywhere near that advanced yet.

If this topic interests you, you can view the research findings here (http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content/abstract/58/3/428).

[nynomi.livejournal.com]

We have a system member, Chloe, who certainly presents as autistic-like. She tends to get serious sensory overload, be either nonverbal or extremely literal and speaking in odd broken sentences, trying to "talk around" concepts almost like a stroke victim. She usually is forced out by situations that induce sensory overload; she spends much of her time inside. She has come out deliberately, though, on occasion, to communicate with frightened animals. I don't know if she is really autistic.

[mysticeden.livejournal.com]

yeah it is. I mean if you can have a blind personality when the core isn't blind, why not autistic?

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Not sure exactly what "the core" means in this context... but... would it be possible to have a sighted "personality" in a body that was physically blind?

Autism's diagnosed behaviorally, but there is solid evidence that it has a biological, genetically-determined basis (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/07/040730090624.htm). There are LOTS of autistic people walking around who've never been diagnosed, who live relatively-normal lives, who may be odd or eccentric but have never considered the possibility that they may be autistic, because they don't fit the media-based stereotype. Often they don't find out they are until they have a child who is diagnosed autistic, and realize that the diagnostic criteria fit them too.

Lots more information available at http://sonic.net/mustang/moggy/AutismLinks.html (http://sonic.net/mustang/moggy/AutismLinks.html).

[mysticeden.livejournal.com]

Core is the originalk personality

I don't know about that but as i said it is possible to have a blind personality in a seeing body

I know what autism is.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay. Not everybody has a "core". Everybody does have a physical body, however, and if the physical body is autistic, it's highly probable that everybody who "fronts" in it is going to be affected by that to some degree.

It's certainly possible to have "personalities" (original or otherwise) in an autistic body that are more or less noticeably affected than others.

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

yeah it is. I mean if you can have a blind personality when the core isn't blind, why not autistic?

The only times I've heard of this happening are through conversion reactions and toxicity reactions. I have a personal suspicion that a lot of cases of 'hysterical blindness' or 'hysterical deafness' earlier in this century and the last were actually due to mercury poisoning (mercury being, at the time, believed by many doctors to be a cure or even a preventative for syphilis), which is able to cause temporary impairment of some senses. We've certainly heard of people in systems who were blind or deaf in their own world, but that's not quite the same thing.

Still, though, I concur with what others have already said-- autism is really a spectrum; and there's a lot of people who consider themselves totally 'normal' who have some autistic-like thought patterns, functions or perceptions in one area of their life. I suspect such tendencies are capable of affecting system members to varying degrees; at least, that's what we've found with our own people.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

In our case, the brain we share in the earth world has the autism; anyone who comes front is affected by it, some more than others. The states that are called "autistic" or "asperger syndrome" in the earth world are normal on our homeworld (they're called chen or chenshi) and we have several frontrunners who are chen, and others who are not and whose autism is limited to the processes of the earth brain they use when they are fronting.

(points to elenbarathi's post) I second this; check out the info she's linked to.

[bizamoogie.livejournal.com]

-blink blink- Earth world?

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Earth world, world-at-large - This world, this physical or consensus reality. Used by people -- plural, median, or singlet -- who experience other worlds to distinguish between events 'here' and events in those worlds, e.g. 'I have a dentist appointment in the earth world today".

http://www.astraeasweb.net/plural/glossary.html

(These are not the words you "should" use; they're the words some multiples, singlets and others have found helpful or useful.)

[bizamoogie.livejournal.com]

The reason I ask is this:

I was told that when I was young, my parents thought I was autistic. Then one day, I just stopped being autistic. 2 of my personalities are autistic, one severely, the other moderatly. I was just wondering what was up.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

That makes sense.

I wonder is this type of situation what's behind some of these so-called success or miracle stories about children who supposedly overcame autism, allegedly chose to stop being autistic (as Raun Kahlil), CAN bilge about how there's a real child in there trapped in a shell of autism, etc., ad nauseum. The scams which have ruined the lives of so many autistics.

The autistic-behaving person, knowing he isn't wanted, departs the front and leaves a neurotypical-behaving person in charge.

Would it require a situation in which the brain is non-autistically hardwired -- this is why I said autistic-behaving -- so that the second person could behave neurotypically, with no trace of the autism left?

Or with an autistically-hardwired brain, the second person just imitates NT behaviour better than the first one (cf. Donna Williams, although as I underestand it she deliberately cultivated or created non-autistic selves). Other autistics would doubtless not be fooled for a minute.

I wonder if this happens maybe more often than we think. I know I'm rambling.

Still thinking this over.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

"The autistic-behaving person, knowing he isn't wanted, departs the front and leaves a neurotypical-behaving person in charge."

*sad nod* That's exactly what happened to Crist-Erui. He didn't ever "depart the front", but he got scared of people and wouldn't show himself any more. He used to go into our parents' room at night sometimes, though, and just stand there watching them sleep - he was so sad.

"Or with an autistically-hardwired brain, the second person just imitates NT behaviour better than the first one"

That would be me. It wsn't a very good imitation, but better than my poor 'brother' could ever have managed; good enough to "pass" at least.

It still makes Kír and me sad and angry to think about, because Crist-Erui is so loving and gentle a person, so full of light, and he's been "shut out" from the world of other people for most of his life. It's still really hard for him to see our parents too, especially our mother - he'll "flicker in" sometimes when I hug her, but she doesn't know he's there, and wouldn't accept him if she did know. He's her child as much as me, but none of her love is for him - basically, he lost his parents when he was five years old.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

I grieve with you&. Something very similar happened to our chen people. Some of them died, many departed for realms unknown. Others simply will not front any more.

[whispersong.livejournal.com]

i feel for Crist-Erui as well very much and i live that life as well to a degree. my cores partner does not particularly want us here, i suspect b/c when they met "we" were integrated...a long story i will not get into as its not relevant here.

i have a question: neuro typical ? Forgive my perhaps silly & inane questions. It would help if the explanation is in plain talk too.

*bows demurely & waits patiently*

{J}tatiana

As an aside, i shall introduce myself at some point to this community i guess and tatiana will do if you wish to call me anything, the {J} honours my lovers name, who saw fit to collar me some months past.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

neurotypical = someone who is not autistic, dyslexic, or any of the other things that are caused by brain hardwiring. It's so you don't say "normal" for non-autistic, non-dyslexic etc. The idea being that conditions like these are actually normal too -- variant normal like lefthandedness or multiplicity, but normal nonetheless. Removes the shame and guilt of having a "disorder" (or a child with same). Instead, acceptance into society as we are, without our having to change and pretend to be something we're not, and finding ways to use our unique skills in productive ways.

This is getting hammered out over at wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurotypical
(more here: http://www.autistics.org)

[prettyrazor.livejournal.com]

One of our personalities is autistic. She pretty much only communicates through music. (Nicholeen named her "La" because of this.) We have others who have autistic tendancies, but she's the one who is the most obvious. Like, we know something's different about Sarah, who is three, because all she does is breathe, pretty much (when she surfaces, we look catatonic, but we're not. She seems to notice things, and loud noises scare her). She has the development of an infant, and we've wondered if she's autistic. Katie has tendancies (mostly the head-banging, and her obsessive need to do certain things and think certain things), too, but that could just be the programming...about how she's bad, she has to be punished... It's like she got the single idea in her head, and no matter what, nothing else gets through to her.

But anyway, those are a few of the examples.

-Meghan, of The People

[bizamoogie.livejournal.com]

Lori loves music, especially techno. She "dances" to it (bobs up and down). While she behaves rather autistic, she's awfully smart and can figure things out on her own. Kami, on the other hand, can't do jack by herself. She has to be led around and fed. She hasn't come out in a long while (I guess because she can't get out by herself)