multiplicity_archives

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It's been suggested that multiplicity might be more common in people with/whose body has Aspergers' syndrome or autism, and I'm rather curious how well that holds up.

Do you or anyone in your system have Aspergers' syndrome or autism? If so, is it a system-wide thing, or particular to a certain person or group?

We have Aspergers' syndrome, and it appears to affect everyone in our system to some extent. (None of us is all that good at understanding social situations or reading body language, for instance, and the lot of us have 'odd' interests.)

(Posted as a result of this entry.)

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"It's somewhat difficult for us to talk about because there appears to be a perception that claiming autism, especially of the Asperger variety, is 'faddish,' especially to excuse one's bad behavior."

Oh, you mean like this?:

You may not yet have heard of Asperger's syndrome. But you can be sure that omeone will sooner or later offer it to you as an excuse for his own bad behaviour, for it is the height of hypochondriac fashion in New York. (http://opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/05/25/do2502.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2004/05/25/ixopinion.html)

Hell, that makes me not want to say anything, and we have an informal diagnosis from Bernard Rimland.

Yeah. It's not a good idea to tell people, because one's very likely to be either disbelieved or discounted/patronized for it. I have a terrible time going to doctors, because my choice is either to not tell them, in which case they do things that cause me severe distress due to my sensory issues, or to tell them and then be treated as if I was retarded.

The thing is, the official diagnostic criteria (http://www.autism-biomed.org/dsm-iv.htm) are entirely behavioral and subjective - the doctor looks at the kid and decides if he acts like the description in the book. The question of why he acts that way doesn't even arise. It's totally circular logic: "he's autistic because he acts this way; he acts this way because he's autistic".

I don't "act autistic", at least not where people can see me doing it. I don't think my behavior these days could fairly be described as anything worse than "eccentric", and I have a full and rewarding social life. When I do tell people, the usual comment is "You don't look autistic" - as if all autistics looked like Rain Man or something. And having walked away from the ~~Thought Police~~ psychiatric establishment and their bullshit diagnoses as soon as I was old enough to legally do so, I was pretty damn offended when a friend told me she thought I might be an Aspie.

This friend, whose children I look after, happens to be a nurse, and at the time she was just going through the process of getting an official diagnosis for one of her sons. (The youngest one just recently got diagnosed as well.) She got me to read Tony Attwood's book, and... y'know... she had a valid point.

I'll never go get an Official Diagnosis. Why should I put myself through that? There isn't jack-shit to be done about it, and I'm not going to go begging to the State, who'd turn me down in an instant anyway, because I've got too much work-history. I'm also not going to have something like that on my medical records, to come back and haunt me when I'm old.... ha, no way.

However, I'd love to be able to give every person who says "Aspies are just faddish attention-seekers" a week of living with my sensory/cognitive 'differences'. Oh yeah, hop in the car and drive to the supermarket; go on in for your dental appointment; pack everything you need for three weeks at the Ren Faire and head on out to it... I'd like well to watch them try, and after that, maybe there'd be a little more respect for those of us who live this way all the time.

But of course, that's the same thing they say about multiplicity. The invention of alters is a convenient way for the patient to act out her aggressive impulses without having to take responsibility for it. It allows the patient to take refuge in a sanctioned sick role. Lather, rinse, repeat. Etc.

Unfortunately, there are some multiple folk who do seem to find it awfully convenient to 'be someone else' whenever they've got aggressive impulses to act out. I don't say they're "inventing alters", but neither are they (any of them) taking responsibility, and it gets pretty annoying to deal with.

Like the people on alt.support.dissociation who'd flame other posters and then follow up with a contrite "Oh, sorry, that was my angry alter! She just hit the 'post' button and I couldn't stop her." I don't necessarily think they're inventing people either, but I'm kind of doubtful as to how much of it the 'angry alter' really wrote.

It's one thing for that to happen, but then, it's up to the so-called angry alter to come forward, and reply. Presuming that was the actual scenario, why is this considered the proper way to handle the circumstance? The issue is never resolved because someone else apologized, while the person who committed the offense remains unapologetic. What kind of tripe is that?

Take two physical people: Sally and Jane. Sally is know for being nice, kind, and sweet-tempered. Jane is known for being mean angry and vicious all the time. If every time Sally got angry at someone, Jane came forward to yell at them, and Sally jumped in to clear her own name, and get Jane forgiven, eventually people would see this for the codependant raquet it quickly becomes. Jane gets to be an asshole and never has to deal with the consequence of her actions, while Sally continues to be seen as a nice, reasonable girl.

Now, let's presume that Jane did all of the above, and Sally actually had nothing against the party in question. Even still, there is no reason for either Sally, or Jane, to expect that this is a reasonable resolution. Sally may think she's being nice, but she's still enabling Jane, and the people who are hurt are barred from getting any real sense that the problem is resolved. Jane is also potentially using Sally's diplomatic nature to her advantage, and can avoid being held accountable for her own actions, as apologies are handled through Sally.

Here's another scenario: take the first situation, but, instead of trying to garner sympathy for Jane, as well as keep her name clear, Sally just lets Jane fight her battles for her, and acts mortified. She never actually lets her presentation of herself be anything other than even tempered, but she frequently acts wounded by others in front of Jane, knowing full well that that will do. Here, Sally has made Jane into her Pittbull. Now she can deal with her "negative" emotions vicariously, having someone say all the not-so-nice things she wants to say.

For some reason however, people let this behavior slide.

--Me

oh christ, did that bring back memories. In usenet alt.support.dissociation and alt.sexual.abuse.recovery, circa 1995-98, it seemed like every other post was that. It was all of the worst examples brought together in two collectors' edition stereo DVDs for our viewing pleasure. Bonus track: it turned out that Peter Barach, yes that Peter Barach (http://www.issd.org), came into the newsgroup and saw all that, and we still believe that this was at least one of the major excuses he used to convince his fellow Thought Police to get rid of the MPD diagnosis (so people with actual MPD couldn't get help), change it to DID, and declare us all a bunch of confused, delusional LOONIES just because that's what he saw on usenet!!!

It's usenet, the quintessential example of people behaving badly online. Do you have any idea how much stuff we could get discounted on that alone? *laughs* Someone might have wanted to check his temperature at the time.

--Me

I think I actually found some of his insufferably arrogant posts one time in a Deja search. He was engaged in a debate with someone who was trying to convince him that integration wasn't always necessary. Unfortunately, that group wasn't very good for convincing anyone that multiples were capable of responsibly tying their own shoes, or doing anything except having their heads knocked together until they all agreed to get along.

From Article:

b) Do people accuse you of failing to share their interests?

You have got to be kidding me. Shit, everyone but June Cleaver's gonna have to say yes to that. What if you're interests are specific, or odd, or worse yet, what if you interact largely with people whose interests are specific, unique, or just plain different from your own?

Make me barf.

--Me

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