The Disorders and Character Flaws Thread

[Seltzer]

Autism is an interesting one - in fact, one of my friends in high school seemed to think that I was mildly autistic but then again, the crux of his argument was that I liked maths and he didn't see how any normal person could possibly do so (he's an arts student) Either way, it was bothering me enough to ask my flatmate for his honest opinion and he seemed to think that there was no way I was autistic.

I've read a bit about it and I'm not sure that autistic people are necessarily uncreative or unimaginative; after all, there have been many autistic artists/writers/actors/musicians. I think it's more that they crave novelty to a lesser extent than normal people, tend towards rigid routine and familiarity, obsess over certain topics and lean towards the mathematical/logical/structured side of things and most of these traits are seen as being adverse to creativity.

The thing with autism is that it's more a spectrum than a specific disorder and people can be affected to different degrees. Low functioning autistics are undoubtedly communicatively dysfunctional whereas high functioning autistics will often speak with perfect grammar, syntax and (possibly) delivery and excel in most lingual tests, but may struggle a bit with figurative language and comprehension. One theory regarding the poor comprehension is that they obsess over small scale details and have trouble seeing the bigger picture. Some autistics may be introverted or anti-social... high functioning autistics might even be sociable and function relatively normally in social situations but exhibit a few odd traits such as lack of eye contact, lack of empathy, or one-sidedness. One possible explanation is that they are initially socially dysfunctional but over time, learn to (or are capable of learning to) emulate the 'normal' social behaviour which is naturally built into other people.

And the thing with many disorders is that they're akin to horoscopes in that they're general enough to seemingly apply to many people. I guess what I'm saying is, a pedantic and introverted scientist with OCD may fit the autistic/Asperger's stereotype perfectly, but not all introverted and obsessive scientists are autistic. It's only too easy to slap a label on a bunch of symptoms, but where do you draw the line between personality variations and disorders?

[Burning Down]

Originally Posted by Seltzer

The thing with autism is that it's more a spectrum than a specific disorder and people can be affected to different degrees. Low functioning autistics are undoubtedly communicatively dysfunctional whereas high functioning autistics will often speak with perfect grammar, syntax and (possibly) delivery and excel in most lingual tests, but may struggle a bit with figurative language and comprehension. One theory regarding the poor comprehension is that they obsess over small scale details and have trouble seeing the bigger picture. Some autistics may be introverted or anti-social... high functioning autistics might even be sociable and function relatively normally in social situations but exhibit a few odd traits such as lack of eye contact, lack of empathy, or one-sidedness. One possible explanation is that they are initially socially dysfunctional but over time, learn to (or are capable of learning to) emulate the 'normal' social behaviour which is naturally built into other people.

Yes, exactly! A lot of people still think that autistic people just flap their arms, click their tongues and are savants who can play a Mozart piece on the piano after hearing only once. Yes, there are autistic people like that, but it is a very small percentage of the total population of people with Autism Spectrum Disorders. My brother, who is 11, is on the higher-functioning end, almost Asperger's. He is 3 years ahead of kids his age when it comes to reading and writing. He knows how to pronounce difficult words correctly and he is a good speller and he uses the correct syntax most of the time. He is several years behind his classmates with conprehension, though. If you got him to read a Harry Potter book, for example, he would have difficulty summarizing the story if you asked him to do so.

I remember last year, my grandpa was saying all kinds of stuff to my mother about autistic people and "how he (my brother) will never, ever even go to high school and you can forget about university. He will just end up living on the street or something like that." Those were his exact words, and I know he comes from a different generation when they didn't understand autism so those people just ended up in institutions and hospital psych wards and the like. But it upset my parents terribly and they didn't speak to him again for a few months until my grandma passed away last fall.

Tore, I'm happy that you have been able to control your anxiety. I have the same general anxiety disorder (I think I posted that early in the thread) and am working on ways to control my anxious feelings. They were much worse when I was younger, because I didn't know how or where to channel those feelings, but now that I'm older the onset of symptoms has greatly decreased. I sometimes go for days or even weeks at a time where the anxiety is gone and it's such a liberating feeling. I was never on psych drugs, and I don't ever want to be. Yes, they can help a little but they're not the "miracle cure" that most people think they are.