You can't become autistic can you?

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The reason I ask because I notice that on this wiki for Asian Drama's they have a drama with a plot that has this in it:

It makes me wonder... can you actually just... become autistic?

I have to laugh. Autism isn't like a cold or the flu, and you just get it. Autism is genetic and something you are born with, but of course, that doesn't make for as exciting a television plot as "becoming Autistic."

No, you cannot because autistic in the sense that most people mean here, since autism is something you're born with.

However, some kinds of traumas, whether physical or psychological, can cause people to withdraw and refuse contact with the outside world, exhibiting symptoms similar to traditional autism, so that laypeople may call them "autistic".

That's one of the things that make understanding autism so difficult: none of its symptoms are indicative of autism only. There is no symptom autistic people only exhibit and nobody else. So it's easy for laypeople to confuse autism with all kinds of other issues.

Yeah but I guess what they mean is he develops autistic traits but still... even in my story about the twins I'm writing... they have traits of autism but they aren't labeled as autistic... its more due to the abuse they've received and whatever. Plus, considering how I'm autistic... it's evolved into both my main story characters.

But yeah... that's what I figured. It's the way its said that makes it seem like you can just... all of a sudden get Autism out of nowhere? O_o It doesn't help that there is little autism awarness as it is and television and media pretty much fails to understand that you don't just get it like you do the flu and overcome it by slowly gaining love and stuff like that. ._.

As far as I know, you can't.

No. My impression is that "autism" in the quoted text is meant as a metaphor. Perhaps a better word would have been "catatonic." Like in "Ghost in the Shell," they mention "autistic mode," but it's not meant literally.

You can't become autistic. You're born autistic.

I don't think it is possible to "become autistic" at age 10, but I'd say it is very possible to develop something that walks and talks like autism if you are treated a certain way in early childhood. I'm thinking specifically of the ghastly orphanages that existed in Romania prior to the coup of 1989. The way babies and toddlers were treated in these institutions produced an entire class of people with autistic-like traits, with a very unfortunate tendency to veer toward psychopathy as the cherry on the top of the sundae.



I'm also wondering if somebody who's an undiagnosed HFA/Aspie might, under extreme stress, start manifesting obvious Autistic behavior that had previously not been noticed, diagnosed or understood for what it was, since it would have been far milder. IOW, they'd been able to get by, maybe with some "oddball" behavior, but on the whole could muddle through. But following a stressor like a parent's death, respond with behavior much more obviously autistic. So it wouldn't so much be that they "developed" autism, more like what was there would get picked up by clinicians far more readily. Please note: I admit I've never read anything about this sort of thing happening (or not happening, for that matter), so it is speculation of the rankest sort on my part. I'd be very interested in reading any empirical research that's been done in this area.

There are some psychiatric conditions that often don't manifest themselves until adolescence, like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but nobody claims those with these disorders "developed" the condition, either. Not exactly the same thing, but even if there were some strange variant of Autism that didn't hit until later in life (which I don't believe, please note) I still think you wouldn't be talking of it "developing," like you might be able to with some forms of depression or neurosis.

My $.02, and doubtless worth every bit of it.

The writer may have been referring to a different kind of psychological disorder. There is a poor understanding of Autism eastern culture in fact psychiatry isn't even a practice in some parts. They'd see autism as a symptom of something like a personality disorder. Rather than being autistic the traumatized character Yunsuh may have post traumatic stress and an avoidant or schizoid personality could have developed from that trauma. Autism even in western culture is often misdiagnosis many times. Even I'd been misdiagnosed before getting it.

You're born autistic, but depending kind of people you're around, it could take quite some time before people even notice. Funny how I knew something was wrong with me years before my parents did.