Mental health issues effecting 70% on the spectrum… a far cry from the old days where if you had any mood, anxiety, compulsive, dissociative, attachment, adjustment, emotional or behavioural, personality or identity disorders or psychosis you were trolled with you ‘couldn’t possibly ALSO be autistic’. Alternatively people without functional communication who also have mental health issues traditionally have had their mental health issues almost as standard fobbed off as ‘part of their autism’.
All people have different ways of interacting with people based on many different factors. This is from a personal perspective.
Personality Types, Conversation & Self
For example I am idiosyncratic so I have deep, introspective emotive conversations with people as a preference, I am solitary by nature so I feel comfortable with my own self, I struggle with praise and prefer sometimes more balanced and objective, real observations of things, I am mercurial so I can flit between different cultures, friendships but I am mindful about the challenges of borderline – lack of self identity, sloppy boundaries and emotional dysregulation (which has a 60 percent crossover with autism), I am self-sacrificing so I am willing to aid, support and help others in need but must be care not to present myself as a doormat, I am serious and can be intense and conversations and prone to depressive episodes.
Ego-syntonic Nature of Co-conditions & Complex Information Processing
OCD drove my to be solitary out of the shackles of the conditions, Exposure Anxiety caged me from the want to connect, dissociation was both and ally and enemy when I was severely meaning deaf/blind and being context blind at least allowed me to appreciate (and partly retain) the system of sensing being etc.
Information processing stuff such as faceblindness, simultagnosia mean I struggle with a shared sense of social, language processing disorder means I can go “deaf” to meaning however just KNOWing this information gives me something to work upon.
A lot of Contrast & Subjective Natures?
I think the situations you talk about are mixture of culture, environment, expectations (social, intercultural, gender, context) and how one’s brains are able to keep up (regardless if they are on the spectrum or not), personality types/clashes of ideals, perceptions, rules, outlooks.
Conclusion
It’s a melting pot that people look yourself accordingly – in the end it is what works best for you.
This is the fourth workshop presentation is about autism and Exposure Anxiety – this overlaps with ODD, PDA, Reactive Attachment Disorder and Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder
This second workshop is an expansion of autisms using Donna William’s “fruit salad” analogy as the basis. I shall be adding links to expanding on some of the aspects which I spoke about.
My autism dances with my personhood… and my personhood must also dance with my autism yet whilst not separable, nor are they interchangeable with each other.
Autism, Identity First Language, and Identity Blog 2014
What is “Autistic Identity” is this narrative helpful? Or is its own simplicity, stereotypes, static and linear narrative actually causing more harm than good? Are people who do not fit the “look” being dismissed because of politics and hidden agendas?
For example let’s look at personality types and autism – all humans beings have these mine are mercurial, idiosyncratic, serious, self-sacrificing and solitary this tempers my perspective, tolerance, outlooks and even my belief systems to some degree. When they become disordered this in term has an impact on presentation.
Social Perceptional Challenges
Now there is sensory perception social emotional agnosia (not seeing body language, facial expression and tone of voice) and alexithymia (emotional awareness) is not SENSORY perception but SOCIAL perception.
Sensory Perception and Sensory Integration? Different Origins?
SENSORY perception simultagnosia, semantic agnosia and associated visual agnosias in which the person struggles with context, faces, people, visual mentalising and secondary factors with language processing what about that reality? Sensory sensitivities associated with psychosomatic amplification are different.
Language Processing, Perception & Articulation
Then there is in language processing such as verbal agnosia the perception of words, receptive and expressive aphasia and ability to filter interpretation, sentence structure and may have secondary communication disorders such as body and oral apraxia. What about that reality?
Mental Health – Does This Change Presentation?
What about people who have mental health presentations such as dissociative disorders, attachment disorders, psychosis, anxiety disorders and impulse control disorder. What about that reality?
What About People With Impacted Health Systems?
What about people with gut, autoimmune, metabolic or collagen disorders in which they gave associated challenges around these conditions in top of any further information processing challenges above? What about that reality?
Autism “Politics” & Fixed Narratives
What about people whom claim that people aren’t on he spectrum due to personal and potentially mitigated circumstances? An inability to see their reality, ideas or perspectives? So potentially setting up an assassination of character and allowing others to go along for ride? How is that care, compassion or inclusion?
I would like to further add that if someone whom was diagnosed in the 1960’s with “childhood psychosis” (which is what they thought autism back then) and later had been diagnosed with autism in the 1990’s along with other conditions throughout their adulthood (such as visual perceptual disorders, atypical epilepsy, dietary disabilities, malabsorption, collagen disorders/ehlers danlos syndrome), whom for many years their diagnosis was considered to be “fake” and a “fraud” despite historical evidence. Is that correct?
Is it fair that their character after over two decades of physical and sexual abuse (they had a mother whom was a attachment disordered serial pedophile and abuser) whom acquired PTSD and Dissociative Identity Disorder to be given the mantle of “fake”? Personality disordered? Emotionally dysregulated? Violent and infantile? I ask these questions because its certainly clear to me that it isn’t and yesterday it brought me great sadness because I know in my heart that this isn’t truth. Its not the writer of such things I upset by its the teller of those things.
They are not here to defend themselves so the least I can do is send out a clear message do not dictate someone’s character second hand. Its that simple.
Identity vs. Reality
“Autistic Identity” is a it’s own separate social phenomena in which people can at times cherry pick what “is and isn’t” their autism. One can supply facts with empathy and I have always remained objective and moderate in the world of autism. Let’s start acknowledging that “autism” was never one thing in the first place.
When someone is diagnosed with autism? Are there other aspects we have to consider?
So for example if someone sees there whole being as “Autistic” is that accurate? helpful? Should we be allowing this to happen?
This workshop is an an introduction and overview of autism using Donna William’s “fruit salad” analogy as the basis. I shall be adding links to expanding on some of the aspects which I spoke about.
It’s a very lonely road at times with my autism work and advocacy and here is why, I know as I type things will make more clarity as I continue to type.
Since Donna Williams’ passing in 2017 I have tried to advocate for her fruit salad analogy of autism (please checkout previous posts, links and images etc). I know that over her years of advocacy and consultancy she had her fair share of problems and challenges.
Militant autism advocates (on and off the autism spectrum) attacking her online for daring to challenge the status quo, rhetoric and internalised problems within the autism community.
Misunderstandings in her non- soft language terminology and her ability to supply “what if” scenarios etc.
This can a does become tiring on both a mental and physical level as to supply knowledge, it isn’t always easy however I try various different formats and medias to do so.
I believe that the ethical and moral thing to do is to supply with empathy and candour the multi-faceted nature of autism, the presentations, the mechanics and personhood.
Why? Because empowerment in this context means giving people tools to make good in life, to find themselves and be ultimately the best version of themselves. So many people cherry pick what autism “is and isn’t” and that is completely understandable because knowledge is not on the table to be supplied.
So anybody interested in finding out more?
Take time in ingest the knowledge and please know as with Polly my heart is in the right place.
Failure are friends, mistakes are mountains climbed, errors are conversations of change
I have learnt the more grounded you are the journey to this frame of mindscapes becomes clearer and more opaque. Take ownership of yourself, your life, your autonomy.
Before people tell you who you are, think of who you are and assume you are, make sure you have a healthy foundation of self-awareness.
It helped me over the years deal and manage other people’s projection. A lot of people who project have low self confidence, self-esteem for a multitude of differing reasons, personality disorders, anxiety, mood, attachment and/or dissociative disorders.
Poor parental and environmental underpinnings can then cause a fracture sense of core beliefs which then in turn cause a dissonance between actual (perceived) and real self, not many know who they are and project what they think they should be. The gnarled backbone of unhappiness.
So in many ways I feel empathy for people whom are angry at the world and at its perceived and very real misgivings.
However boundaries have to be out in place listen not always to the words but the patterns in which the words form. I have learnt that distance and cutting off is a very needed and that is fine.
