multiplicity_archives

We have autism!

Mostly, it's our number one fronter, Morpho, who is considered to be the most autistic. The strange thing is that Roman, who we think of as a little socially clueless but not autistic, was actually out during the testing, for the most part..and yet she was still diagnosed with autism..'the big enchilada', as she'd say. (Don't ask how you can get to age 36 before being diagnosed with autism..we don't know.)

Generally, most of us don't think of ourselves as sharing Morpho and Roman's autism, and yet there are distinct limits to how much social and environmental stimulus we can handle. I think that even those of us who think of ourselves as very social and gregarious..generally do not front in public situations, and therefore have not had their claimed social butterfly characteristics tested very much.

In that thread it's been mentioned that someone, unnamed, theorized that this is the case. I percieve a significant difference in the statements.

I have not been diagnosed with any form of autism, in fact, the only "diagnosis" that we have from a therapist is that we are going through a rough transition from student to working force drone, and doing a surprisingly decent job of discarding obsolete and detrimental notions from our family.

I'm not inclined to label myself or others in the system as autistic. My understanding of the topic is largely based on steriotypical notions. Perpetuating these notions by declaring myself a working example of them, would do little but cause problems for those who are autistic.

Until such time as my knowledgebase increases, and I see significant data to support the idea that I might be autistic, without a more likely explaination, my answer would have to be no.

--Me

No one in our system has either.

Also, you might be interested in this post (http://www.livejournal.com/community/multiplicity/265409.html), which is a similar question about whether or not systems have members that are autistic.

Rock on. I was considering linking to that thread, but was too lazy to nab it.

--Me

We don't have either of those...at least not that I'm aware of. Though, one of my others is very odd. Think "Drucilla" from Buffy...well she talks oddly like that *shrugs*

In that thread it's been mentioned that someone, unnamed, theorized that this is the case. I percieve a significant difference in the statements.

True, and I agree. I've also been hearing that theory around and about for years now, in different phrasings. I can't recall anyone citing sources, but some people seemed to have more information than others (and I'm generally pretty good at distinguishing theories with data backing them up from those that haven't much, or any).

I might change the phrasing on that. Going to think about it for a while first.

We don't have autism, at least I haven't noticed anything and we haven't been diagnosed as autistic, etc.

nopers.

Thank you!

I remembered that post when making this one, but was too lazy to search back and find it.

We don't have either. We're actually very sensitive to things that (from my limited understanding) people who have Asperger's or autism generally aren't, like body language and social cues. And we overall are fine with lots of sensory input and things.

So. I don't know if it's a case of "Suzie has brown hair. Suzie is a girl. All girls have brown hair" faulty logic or whether there's some overlap or what.

Speaking from the multiple perspective, I think that if there are multiple people in a body, the statistics just tend to go that you may have a person who has X, because there are enough people 'in the room' so to speak to have various Xs.

I also kind of question the idea that autistics "create" personalities in response to in a sense, their trauma - it goes back to this idea that multiples create themselves as a response, from a singular original personality - something that doesn't fit with our experience of ourselves.

*grins* Depends which one of us you ask. If you ask me, the answer is a definite yes - the social aspects of it aren't that much of a problem these days (I'm almost 48, after all; I've had time to learn skills enough to 'pass'), but the sensory/processing aspects haven't changed. Some of them are very cool; some of them are annoying... *shrugs*... I wouldn't take the "normal pill" if it came with a million-dollar bonus, but sometimes I wish there was a cure for neurotypicality (http://home.att.net/~ascaris1/neurotypicality.html).

If you ask Kír, the answer is an equally-definite "no" - not because he denies the sensory/processing differences (which he too must cope with when he's corporeal, and finds very disconcerting), but rather because he denies the validity of 'autism' as a diagnostic category - in fact, denies the validity of the entire DSM-IV. I actually agree with him about that, because the DSM-IV is really nothing more than the modern-day Malleus Maleficarum, and he's right that what is called "autism" may have a dozen different causes, none of which have been determined - not to mention that no two autistics are ever alike - HOWEVER, I still think we do need a word, and the word "autism" works well enough. He says it doesn't; that it's inaccurate and perjorative. We could argue about it all month, and never agree, so... whatever.

If you asked Crist-Erui, assuming you were one of the handful of people he'll allow close enough to ask him anything, you'd get no useful response: he can talk, he apparently understands things just fine, but he almost never answers questions. A shrink who saw him would doubtless diagnose him as quite severely autistic, but no shrink ever will see him, so it's moot.

Speaking from the multiple perspective, I think that if there are multiple people in a body, the statistics just tend to go that you may have a person who has X, because there are enough people 'in the room' so to speak to have various Xs.

That's certainly one possibility. I read back over here (http://www.livejournal.com/community/multiplicity/265409.html), and it seems to suggest that systems having one autistic (or autistic-appearing) member are fairly rare.
If multiplicity and autism-spectrum states have little to do with one another, then we can probably expect to see the same prevalance rate as in the general population. (Only a few aspies in the multiple community, and only a few multiples in the aspie community. The second might be biased by not wanting to 'out' oneself, which is why I've added this post and cross-referenced the entries.)
If there does turn out to be some sort of correlation, I have no idea what it will indicate, aside from more research being necessary! :)

An LJ questionnaire isn't the most scientific of methodologies, and there's probably going to be a sample-size problem, but some data is better than none.

There is no statistical evidence as yet. Speculation comes from within the online communities devoted to discussion of same, including this one, but that's a relatively small fraction of the overall population and may not be representative.

Rumor has it that some professionals in Australia are speculating on a possible connection between some forms of Asperger autism and natural / non-disordered multiplicity, but they haven't got anything solid yet.

The real problem is that so little actual research has been done on multiplicity anything (as opposed to speculation) that nobody can say if there's a connection right now.

Our personal experience is that the shared brain has the autism; anyone who comes front is affected by it. The conditions that are collectively labeled autism on earth are normal on Laura, and are referred to as chen. They are valued and honoured members of society. Several frontrunners, including Elaq, Gabe, jason and myself, are considered chen at home. The history of our chen in the earth world is complicated, since they very much wanted to be active on earth but had to be secret or clandestine most of the time.

Donna Williams describes having created personalities who could give a non-autistic presentation to the world-at-large, not so much in response to trauma but simply to give an appearance of "normality". One of us did that. She didn't create a new person, but she modified her own presentation.

I also kind of question the idea that autistics "create" personalities in response to in a sense, their trauma..

At times the theory is worded that way, but it doesn't have to be. There's also the possibility of common causes, where gene-sets contributing to autism might predispose one to be/become multiple. (Or gene-sets which are simply more common in the autisitc population, even if they have no direct effect on the expression of spectrum traits.)

The body has AS, as I mentioned, and the trauma-multiple thing doesn't mesh with our experience either. There might originally have been one person in this body, but if there was, they no longer exist because we grew out of them in much the same way as a grove of trees can share a root system. It was an entirely natural process.
(The other option is that we were hiding from one another for 12+ years, which is also a possibility.)

It's certainly possible to have traits that are thought of as being stereotypically autistic without being autistic in and of oneself. Things like difficulty reading body language, dislike of interaction with crowds, a 'professorlike' manner of speaking and writing, etc. can have multiple causes. We know plenty of non-autistic people who exemplify certain of those qualities to the hilt. Sometimes people really do just have 'quirks.'

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. I won't claim that I've never seen this; I've only seen it a few times, but a few cases are all that some people need to pick up the idea that it's always a put-up job. I think there may also be a tendency for people to interpret mute/withdrawn system members as autistic. (To be fair, this is nothing new: it used to be common to refer to abused children who had become intensely withdrawn as autistic, which helped to perpetuate the concept that it was caused by abuse and bad parenting.)

I would say that about half of the people in here identify with the label, and half of them don't. Significantly or not, those who do are primarily those who were 'born into the body'-- who haven't identified as walk-ins. For those who don't, they tend to see it as an aspect of the body which may or may not fit with who they really are-- like being female-- but which needs to be acknowledged anyway (i.e. remembering that they can't stay at a party too long because of overload). Some people here, like Ruka, consider it fascinating to study/experience as a different state of being than their own.

We do have our share of people with individual 'quirks' which some might choose to see as autistic, although they aren't in and of themselves. One of the problems with a society where corporations and lobby groups dictate 'normalcy' is that things once considered to be merely odd or even positive-- like having a deep, intense area of interest, or (for children) preferring reading to sports and socializing-- have been redefined as symptoms of (supposed) pathologies. Conversely, there have also been attempts by some autistic people to redefine autism as a 'superior' state of being (much as some multiples have attempted to claim multiplicity as a superior state) characterized by logic and superintelligence-- which may be partly responsible for more people deciding, accurately or no, to self-define as autistic, if it's seen as a positive state.

Our take on that whole business is that while it's certainly better to be seen as a special genius than as something which shouldn't exist, these expectations can also put a stressful burden on autistic people to appear brilliant, talented, hyperlogical, to be savants, etc. in order to prove their authenticity and right to exist. Again, there are also parallels with multiplicity here, in that multiples were expected to be geniuses, creative, psychic, etc., and some multiples who didn't meet the impossibly high standards (incl. us) worried about whether or not they were 'real.'

Exactly, which is why we don't feel comfortable applying the label to ourselves, individually, or as a group. Well, that and we don't feel we fit the criteria, in any fashion that isn't better explained by, for example, cultural differences, and being raised by someone who was having trouble with English at the time.

I feel that slapping on the label, on the basis of some odd traits, without serious examination, is a disservice to oneself, and people who are autistic.

--Me

We're not autistic. We used to wonder if one system member's behavior was autistic, but have since decided he's just remarkably quirky. ;)

"I think there may also be a tendency for people to interpret mute/withdrawn system members as autistic."

In our case, this physical body is definitely autistic - Kír may dispute the word, but even he doesn't dispute the signs: sensory hyperacuity, hyperlexia, prosopagnosia, splinter skills, executive-processing dysfunction. However, I don't think it's because of autism that Crist-Erui went mute and withdrawn; I think my mother beat him.

When my daughter was little, I had a conversation with my Mom on the subject of spanking, and she said that she stopped spanking me after an incident that made her realize that she was out of control with it. I don't remember that at all, but I do remember Crist-Erui becoming afraid of people, not all at once, but gradually - he just sort of slipped away from everything human. So I think that was why, though I have no way to prove anything. But even before then, he didn't talk.

These days he talks; he's even quite the chatterbox at times, now that he's got people he can talk to who won't hurt him, and he's getting more understandable, but he's still very strange and shy. It's hard to say whether his strangeness is "autism", though, or something else, and in a lot of ways it really doesn't matter.

We're not autistic, but I don't know what Asperger's is.

Maybe if I knew more about it, I'd be able to tell you.

Tara
Pack Collective

When my daughter was little, I had a conversation with my Mom on the subject of spanking, and she said that she stopped spanking me after an incident that made her realize that she was out of control with it. I don't remember that at all, but I do remember Crist-Erui becoming afraid of people, not all at once, but gradually - he just sort of slipped away from everything human. So I think that was why, though I have no way to prove anything. But even before then, he didn't talk.

I think many people don't realise the kind of effect that hitting and physical restraint can have on kids-- and for some autistic kids with sensory issues, the violation of physical space can be pretty traumatising. It sounds like whether or not he was inclined to talk to begin with, after that, he just basically got the impression that interacting with people at all was dangerous.

We kind of had a point in our fights with our (the body's) brother when we both realised we were getting seriously out of control and needed to cut it the hell out. It's unfortunate that in so many family interactions, the aggressor (or aggressors) only become aware of their mistakes after damage has already been done-- but it's good at least that he's found people he can trust.

Aspergers' syndrome is considered to be on the mild end of the autistic spectrum, and the diagnostic criteria are almost exactly the same. (Though given the reliability of the current system of defining the spectrum, next week they may very well be saying that we're little green aliens in disguise. Nothing that the multiple comunity isn't familiar with, there.) Some people make no distinction between high-functioning autism and Aspergers' syndrome, but among those who do, it's usually dependant on whether or not there's a delay in developing language.

Rumor has it that some professionals in Australia are speculating on a possible connection between some forms of Asperger autism and natural / non-disordered multiplicity, but they haven't got anything solid yet.

That would be a highly interesing study to see the results of. Thanks, and I'll keep an eye out in that direction. Hopefully something will come of it.

"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.

The problem with correlating diagnoses is that people in treatment for one thing may be more likely to have someone identify other things.

And then again, sometimes people go through multiple diagnostic labels. It wouldn't necessarily be uncommon for a multiple system to be labelled a number of things, especially if they were in contact with a psychiatric community that didn't believe in/wasn't looking for multiplicity.

But otherwise, yah, agreed.

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