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).
no subject
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).