Is autism related to schizophrenia?

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Verdandi,

I'm not sure what you mean by "bad faith" but I'm not implying that this M.O. of anbuend's represents a conscious, "willful" attempt at being evasive/deceitful/etc. Again, I would describe it as a defense mechanism, something that's essentially automated, complete with tried-and-true rationalizations, so that her experience and description of this dynamic is "honest" and intellectually satisfying (for her), and even true (from her point of view).

The problem is, everyone has "language issues"--I mean, this is a forum full of autistic individuals. Everyone's struggling to establish meaning and achieve understanding. Everyone should be allowed to "cop out" in the way anbuend does, as we're all beholden to a great number of limitations, both general and personal. But few of us ever do. Why not? Simple--because discussion, argument, etc. is pointless otherwise.

Number one, I'd like to take just one more look at the passage in question. anbuend said:

It's an outdated guess by Bleuler as to people with wildly differing and totally unrelated symptoms, had those symptoms. The guess is now known to be false. Why we continue calling them "schizophrenia" or even "the schizophrenias" is beyond me, it's just one of those examples of how bad psychiatry is at science.

Scorn, or contempt, is the feeling or attitude of regarding someone or something as inferior, base, or worthless. To "dismiss" is simply to reject. "Scornful dismissing" describes anbuend's comments on the diagnosis/concept of schizophrenia perfectly--she rejects it as worthless. To suggest otherwise would mean not that her words inadequately represent her ideas, but that they are completely unrelated to them.

Number two, despite anbuend being so keenly in touch with her "language issues", the problem is still on my end. Her response to me:

Any scornful dismissing you read into it was in your own head, not in my words, and I'd appreciate not have it read into what I write. It's very, very difficult for me to form words around how to explain how commonly-accepted concepts work, (which is one reason I end up using too many of them) and "guess" wasn't meant to be read the way you're reading it. It's just extremely difficult to know what the right words are, especially with such a complicated history.

So, which is it? Is the problem her inability to find the right words, or my finding meaning that she didn't intend? How can it be my fault for finding meaning that she didn't intend if her words didn't adequately convey her meaning to begin with? Furthermore, anbuend expects everyone to give her the benefit of the doubt--why can't she do the same for me? Just because I'm not constantly copping out of conversations by playing this "language issues" card doesn't mean that I don't have any. How does she know how I'm "reading" the word "guess"?

Once more, anbuend is a smart person with a lot of interesting things to say. But this cop-out routine of hers makes it very hard to take her seriously sometimes. Bottom line: she's not special. Not any more than the rest of us.

It's like saying everyone has movement difficulties. And then when someone knocks something over, tell them to put it back, and when they can't (because they have a movement difficulty), tell them of course they should be able to pick it up, you have a movement difficulty and can pick it up.

Not all difficulties are created equal.

For you, maybe. For her? http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/?p=628

For the record, please note that what I've said and what Roman has said are two different things, and they seemed to be getting mixed up a bit here.

anbuend is Amanda Baggs?

Well, that explains everything.

My participation in this thread ends here.

Amanda = trouble.

Actually, not everyone is willing to give me this "favor", and I have learned over time that when someone insists they know what I meant, over my objections, especially if they insist that I meant something hostile in nature, then I had best simply walk away from them, because those interactions never turn out well, and often do in fact end in vague or not-so-vague allusions to defamatory rumors bullies have spread about my supposedly feigning autism and the like. (Because that's a very convenient way to dismiss what I have to say, and confirm all their biases about me are true, and not have to accommodate my difficulties at all, in one fell swoop. I honestly thought people here pretty much knew who I was already, it's not like I'm not frequently posting pictures, videos, blog links, etc.) I don't really want to get into it any more than that, other than to say that's the sort of thing that guy's last remark was alluding to.

My last comment in this thread wasn't aimed at you, though. It was aimed at the person who was dismissing everything I had to say about what the real thoughts were behind the words. And honestly, at the time, it was all I was capable of writing. That's the part you seem to have trouble understanding about all this. I was trying to explain everything. I was trying with a whole lot of effort, because one of my pet peeves is having people tell me what I'm thinking and not believe me when I say "Actually it's not that." (I don't mind that people misunderstand, I just mind when after I say it was a misunderstanding, they still insist that the way they interpreted it was the only possible way something could be meant. And to be clear again, I don't mean you.) Anyway, I tried with everything I had, and my mind was just... not blank exactly, but no words were there, and something vaguely explosive kept happening when I tried to find the right words. The words I did get, I had to work very hard to get out at all. Nothing about this was easy, nothing about this was giving up on purpose. In fact you'll find that often I come back to threads later and explain things once I'm capable of writing on that topic again. I can easily see how what I said looked like I wasn't willing to do that, but it was more like I wasn't willing to have this conversation with this particular person because I could tell their mind was made up and I don't have the energy to waste on people who do that because I have very little energy already. But the effort was there.

As for why I don't just say what I do mean instead of just saying "no, no, I don't mean that"... if I could do that, I wouldn't have a tenth of the communication problems I do have. And it's not just a matter of try and possibly get it wrong again. Trying doesn't always lead to finding any words at all. Sometimes it leads to that weird explosive feeling in my head that happens when I am reaching for a skill that isn't there. Bash myself into that explosive feeling for long enough and all I get is shutdown. I know better. I can't always afford shutdown, I have a life offline and I have a lot of trouble just getting through the day. For me, failure doesn't mean just getting the wrong words, or even just getting no result at all, it means losing other abilities in the process. So i have to weigh the risks every time. But this past time, I was being stupid and risking a lot, rather than weighing the risks, and then finally exhausted myself and said the only thing I could figure out how to say (and didn't have enough brain left to remember to hit the quote-reply thing so you'd know I wasn't talking to you, because honestly your post hadn't even registered in my brain yet).

So in the most oversimplified sense (and I know this doesn't accurately represent the conversation but I can't get into something as complex as the conversation right now... it still illustrates what's happening):

Me: I want an orange.
Someone: Okay, here's an orange.
Me: Oh I didn't mean I want an orange, sorry, the wrong words came out and gave you the wrong impression.
Someone: No, you said you wanted an orange and that's exactly what you meant.
Me: No... no... really... I didn't want an orange.

And at that point, the word-search part of my brain is probably going.

"I want a... .... *."
"I... ... ... ... .. ... * * * * * * *"
"* * * * *"
"*"
"..."

Where each * is one of those little explosions that happens when I'm trying to use an ability I don't have. And that kind of thing I just described with the *s and stuff is what goes on in my head when I'm trying to come up with words for something that refuses to be worded. There's no "just try and you'll get something at least" to it. Because the more I try the more I just get those explosions.

But being unable to write that one thing doesn't necessarily mean being unable to write all things. And this is just one example of a more complex language issue. The real version has several skills being juggled and falling out of my hands and me crawling around on the ground looking for them and only being able to use one at a time and several of them vanishing into thin air at random intervals and... it's really hard for me to put into words the entirety of what the word issue is, because there's lots of pieces and it's not on the same level that most people imagine all language issues happen at. It's not the simple word-finding issue I describe above, that's just an explanation of what it looks like in my head when I'm trying to do this and can't.

Also, what's the worst that can happen if I try to do something like this and fail?

Losing some combination of all ability to understand language, all ability to use language for anything (not just that thing), all ability to move, all ability to comprehend my surroundings, and all ability to think in concepts at all. Sometimes just one, sometimes all, sometimes something in between.

That's why I ought to get to say how far I go in these discussions without being accused of 'giving up' or 'just not trying' etc. Because the stakes for more are much higher for me than they are for a lot of people here. I will actually sometimes risk a lot for a communication where I know I'm going to be believed at the end of it, but when I'm not being believed then it's too much risk altogether, and I've developed the ability to figure out quickly what those situations are and (if I have any sense, which I don't always) avoid them because they involve giving up a whole lot for no benefit on my end and no benefit on the other person's end. The idea that I'm "just not trying" for saying no and backing away early on, is like saying I'm "just not trying" because I don't walk until I collapse (in the offline world I can't walk very far at all anymore due to physical issues).

I think some of this is an issue of passing, honestly. In online forums (where nobody has to see what my language looks like a lot of the day) I usually pass for having the same set of language that other people here do, even though I have quite intense language issues. This is partly because most people think of "language issues" as a simple continuum between being unable to write at all, through being able to write a few words, through being able to write sentences with "poor grammar" or "poor spelling", all the way through to being able to write long and eloquent things in fairly good grammar. And I usually pass as being on the "good language" side of that (especially since nobody here sees me when I'm trying to write and can't, funny that). And I pass that way despite having some really enormous language issues that either are invisible to people online, or are in areas that most people don't think to look for them.

So when people hear me say that I have language issues, they assume that they're equivalent to the main ones that people around here have, and they're not. If they were the same, then people wouldn't accuse me of not trying when I'm not able to do certain things. People who do have the same type (sometimes also the same degree, sometimes not) of language issues as I do have never accused me of that because, knowing it from the inside, they can see a lot of what's tripping me up that's invisible to other people here. I've found that among online autistic people, there are people who've got the same type and/or degree of language issues as I'm experiencing (for instance, Verdandi has some similar ones, just not precisely the same, but similar enough that she can nearly always spot exactly what's giving me trouble), but we are not in the majority of online autistic people at all, and that works against us when we do run into problems like this. (Also, in my case, having to write long unwieldy stuff like this is part of a language problem, not just part of a language skill as some people assume. I'm usually unable to summarize and that causes me huge problems in making myself readable to other people.)

But this sort of thing is exactly what all disabled people who pass (either as nondisabled, or as a different kind of disabled person) have to deal with in one form or another: People will assume they're not trying, because people assume that they have certain skills until blatantly shown otherwise in a small number of possible ways. In my case, when I pass online in situations like this... it's like there's what people imagine they're seeing, which is a sturdy structure made out of what all the other sturdy structures are made out of. And then there's what's there -- something that takes the same vague outline-shape of the sturdy structure, but that is made out of something totally different, and has huge, gaping holes all the way through it to the point where it's precariously balanced and can barely stand up.

Now that I've explained that... I'll eventually possibly try to come back and say what I did mean after all. I do consider myself accountable for my opinions, it's just... sometimes what people think my opinions are, and what they are, is something totally different, and it can sometimes take me a long time (if ever) to be able to say what I really meant. I won't lie and say that I know that I'll be able to describe what I really meant, nor that what I really meant will necessarily meet with anyone's approval. I just prefer when people disapprove of what I really mean instead of disapproving of something that came out with wrong connotations by accident. But if I do, I'll post it to this thread (or whatever other thread might have sprung up since then dealing with the same ideas). One reason I can't guarantee it is that I was already practically at the end of my rope trying to describe these concepts to begin with. I don't know if I can do better or not, and I will only find out one way or the other if I do manage to do better.

You are brilliant. Well at least IMHO you are!

After reading and mulling over your response I reconsider my posts here as well as the initial 'gut reaction' that inspired them. I am now convinced that you are on to something with your 'orthogonal' relationship suggestion. Such a theory would allow a person to experience different aspects of both the Autism Spectrum AND the Schizoid Spectrum AT THE SAME TIME. I am right in that extrapolation, correct? The way I'm thinking is that given the relative 'rational/male' brain and 'intuitive/female' brain natures of the two spectrums, they could coexist because we all have both types/aspects of brain construct (rational AND intuitive coexist in all of us). Thank you for your input and insight.

Only part of the autistic spectrum involves people who are highly rational. Other parts can involve people who are quite intuitive indeed and have serious trouble with rational thought. The idea that all of autism is about being very rational, is based on taking those who are highly rational and assuming everyone else is like them (something that happens a lot in research... including Simon Baron-Cohen's IIRC). Also, men are more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia than women, which makes the idea that it's "female" rather questionable.

Yeah, I got upbraided for the 'male/female' brain thing on another thread. Stupid me with my outdated symbolisms, I've promised to be more "PC".

I agree that throwing around phrases like 'hyper rational brain' might lead to some misunderstanding but I don't attribute oversimplification to Baron-Cohen's theory.

Schizophrenia and Autism aren't similar. In Schizophrenia, a Psychiatrist looks for auditory hallucinations, ie; the hearing of voices. It's the number one most prevalent symptom in Schizophrenia. The Psychiatrist, also, wants to observe a delusional system in place, often related to the auditory hallucinations and where they originate, why they are plaguing the individual.
One example is someone hears a voice and thinks it's the Devil telling them they are bad, will go to hell, will always be cursed, is hated by loved ones and friends. When someone tells them it's impossible, they won't believe it. Nothing can convince them otherwise.
This doesn't sound anything like Autism.

i would greatly appreciate it, if somebody could kindly and patiently explain to me, why one shrink could say i was "schizoid" while another shrink said i was "schizotypal" and a third called me ADHD [inattentive type] while a fourth and final one said i had aspergers' syndrome? are all these different things just syndromes that overlap? could i just be the crazy elephant who is being felt-up by blind men, each of whom is palpating a different part of me, and one feeling my leg says i must be a tree, and one feeling my trunk say "NO! it's plainly a heavy vine!" while yet another blind man feels my flapping ears and says, "NO! it's a palm frond"?

It wouldn't surprise me much if they were somehow related, like the area of the brain affected, but they're 2 entirely different disorders.

Anbuend's posts generally make equally as much sense whether it's a deceit engineered to establish cult-like naivette in her audience or as a genuine attempt to communicate significant and bizarre language problems. The fact that she appeared to be making a very clear, eloquent, coherent, and complicated point early on does put her side in a bit of doubt, however. After someone disagrees with her, she claims that she has trouble communicating...But at no point in any of her multiple, paragraphs-long posts is the apparent message at all unclear or internally inconsistent, as you might expect from someone who is failing to properly communicate their point.

However, my jury's still out on this one.

I match the DSM criterias for ADHD - Inattentive, Schizoid PD and probably AS; and I am very close to the ICD criteria for schizotypal.

I'm glad you're not MY jury. Frankly, I can be eloquent and verbose, speak in academic and expansive language but fail to understand it when I read it coming from someone else. That's a communication problem. Know much about ASD, Chamomile?

I have my own problems like that, as well as difficulties translating thoughts (which aren't words) into words. Throw in a degree of hypergraphia and language usage derived from hyperlexia and a form of language scripting to produce phrases that "sound right" for where they're placed and it's easy to sound pretty clear and articulate with multiple paragraphs and still fail to make the point one wants to make.

And of course a common problem of somehow phrasing things I am trying to communicate in such a way as to suggest I am angry or scornful or flaming when I am not any of these things. The actual problem is, however, when someone tells me their version of my emotional state is more valid than my actual emotional state, and basically trying to push me in a rhetorical corner where my statements and arguments are redefined into something I never intended to say.

Which is, incidentally, the problem: Not that anyone disagreed, but that the disagreement took the form of telling someone what her real intent was when she said "No, that wasn't it," and telling her that it was a cop-out when she tried to explain why she couldn't rephrase it.

Anyway, it's pretty easy to describe something as bizarre if one doesn't have experience with it, or something like it.

This is why I recently switched my adult-entry degree path. There is no way I will be able to withstand the level of comprehension required for a lot of academic texts. I like failing to make points inside of some broad and apparently eloquent comment or response I make . I often get accused of "strawman tactics." Then I have to go and review what a strawman is, again, so that I can attempt to get the visual of a scarecrow out of my head.