multiples and autism

[danielmultiple.livejournal.com]

We are fairly new to this community, though we do talk to one of the members online in private e-mails . . .

Currently, we are working on a book about Asperger's Syndrome in which we want to address the concept of multiplicity and autism - in short, we have found that quite a few people with AS report something like multiplicity so we are thinking that this may be part of AS . . .

We are very interested in any of your thoughts about this, especially if you are autistic too - we are collecting quotes to include in this chapter of the book . . .

As for us personally, there are three and a half of us - there is a central processor (that is the half) that presents to the real world most of the time, then there is me, Daniel, who is dominant most of the time - I am the most autistic of the bunch and have really almost no emotions - except for fear, and I have a terrible temper . . .
Then there is Gabriel who keeps all of our emotions - he is very young - maybe 15 or so . . . I really dislike him . . .
Then there is Nathan - Nathan is probably the closest to what you think of as an autistic - he is very creative and loves to do things like sew and also loves animals and toys - but he couldn't function on his own - he is unconcerned with the outside world unless it effects him directly - he really lives in a world made up of sensation and gets distracted easily - he is almost never dominant by himeself . . .

I am almost always dominant but usually through the central processor - unless I get angry . . . I don't want to give the impression that we are excessively mean - we are vegans, actually - I just yell a lot when I get mad . . .

Comments

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Same here. The beauty of different races has always intrigued us. We had a copy of Leontyne Price's recording of Aida (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000041RW/102-2036410-1102553?v=glance) in the house, and we were very aware that our little black friends at dancing school were "Negroes like Leontyne Price". Some flowers are red, some are white, some people are white, and we, being Indian, were red.

Being Indian is part of our who-we-are in the earth world. We were always intensely aware of it, even though Indians had minimal visibility in 1950s Illinois. We won't disparage Indians as team mascots as long as they're portrayed with distinction and respect, because we grew up with the Fighting Illini (http://www.coasttocoasttickets.com/images/ncaab_illinoisfightingillini.jpg) and there was an Indian on the test pattern on TV (http://www.moderntv.com/modtvweb/special/freegif-bw1.htm) and we were proud -- that was our visibility*, even though we knew the actual Illini weren't really like that.

So yeah, race wasn't puzzling to us. Fighting between the races was, though.

--
*Well, that and Tonto being smarter than the Lone Ranger. Heh.

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

Same here. The beauty of different races has always intrigued us. We had a copy of Leontyne Price's recording of Aida in the house, and we were very aware that our little black friends at dancing school were "Negroes like Leontyne Price".

Heh. I remember our black friend from swim lessons very clearly (she was the only black person in the group). We thought that maybe if we spent enough time lying in the sun, our skin would turn as dark as hers and then we wouldn't have to worry about putting suntan lotion on any more... well, we were five at the time.

So yeah, race wasn't puzzling to us. Fighting between the races was, though.

We've got kind of a weird dual perception in that regard, which is difficult to explain: at the same time that we perceive people as individual human beings, we've always got a filter on background which is constantly aware of how society's prejudices would interpret the behaviour of those around us. It's like we have a 'prejudice recording' and it's difficult to turn off, although it doesn't (I hope) come through in how we treat other people.

Then again, I've often wondered if this may perhaps be a very common thing, but no one wants to talk about it because nobody wants to admit that they might possibly have any kind of hidden prejudice; everyone wants to see themselves as a paragon of tolerance and openmindedness. The best we can do with it seems to be to acknowledge it's there, that it's not something intrinsic to us but an artifact of a biased society, and just keep trying to view people on an individual basis.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

That background filter doesn't sound too different from the usual what-will-people-think filters that anyone who is different (autistic, multiple, or whatever) might have. Like being aware of what society thinks is "too crazy or out there". We try to think of that as sort of a protective inhibition. I suppose it serves its purpose, but what I object to are the people who with your best intentions (oh, always) in mind, tell you that you must keep being aware of "what society thinks is crazy" even in the privacy of your own home. Like hell I do.

As far as lying in the sun, we did that too... the darker the better, we thought, and still do.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

"we've always got a filter on background which is constantly aware of how society's prejudices would interpret the behaviour of those around us."

I've got one of those, but it's mostly cued in to voices, speech patterns, phrasing, accents - all the auditory components of a person's presence, and not much of the visual. Probably I don't really look much at people I don't know, and less than "average" even at my nearest and dearest, but I listen - and yeah, the 'recording' is quite prejudiced about what constitutes acceptable speech.

I presume the 'recording' is my mother, teachers, and other critical adult women of my childhood - their fault-finding imprinted on my wee little neuro-circuits before I'd learned enough language to defend myself. Kind of tedious to have to carry their provincial linguistic value-judgements with me all my days, but mostly I just let it pass by.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Okies, let me ask you this, if it's not too rude or nosy a question: when you say you're red, do you mean "red" like someone else would call the color red, or do you mean it the way coffee-with-cream-color people say they're black?

The reason I ask; I've known a fair number of Native folk (including our Morchalad, who's half Alaskan Indian) and I've never seen any of them as "red" except when they've been out in the hot sun or something. For that matter, if I went out in the hot sun for a couple of hours (assuming I was somewhere that had hot sun in April) I would come back true flaming scarlet, far redder than I've ever seen any darker-skinned person get. Yet people wouldn't then call me "red-skinned", just sunburned. So what's up with that?

Morchal's skin doesn't really have any notably red tones in it at all, this time of year - he's not as pale as me, of course, but he's pretty pale, and his underlying skin-tone is sort of gold - yet he'd still be called "red", yes? LOL, actually I find it pretty funny, that a Scandahoovian like myself can be both darker than a 'black' person and redder than a 'redskin'. I don't see how anyone ever keeps the whole concept straight in their minds.

*grins* Tonto was smarter and cuter than the Lone Ranger. Kato was smarter and cuter than the Green Hornet too - I didn't find out till I was grown up, that he'd been played by Bruce Lee; then it was, like, "well, no wonder!"

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

We personally are more like the coffee-with-cream-color people saying they're black. We tan very red without burning, often appearing to be sunburnt when we're not, and we always thought that our heritage was part of it.

But yeah, the actual skin color often has little to do with what a person of a particular race is called. The one that puzzled us was when Asian people were called yellow, since we never saw them that way. Most of our Asian friends are Chinese, and when we can tell any difference at all in their skin color they look like -- well, shades of gold, like you said, from darker to lighter depending where they are from, but they never impressed us as being yellow.

We knew a girl of German ancestry who spent most of her time outdoors in sunsuits rather than the long-sleeved shirts and jeans that we wore most of the time (partly due to farm work). Her hair was bleached white-blonde but her skin was darker than ours, so we can picture the contrast you talk about with your friend.