'We are all somewhere on the spectrum'

Post Reply New Topic

I don't mind it really. The thought behind it is well meaning, although misguided. If I'm in a particularly gritty mood, I will thank them for the sentiment. " It's nice. However, we are all not autistic.. wondering how you came to that conclusion..."

I am a black woman and think of it as people telling you that they don't see you as black. I see you as white like everybody else.. While well meaning, pretty misguided. "Well, thank you for seeing me as equal, but I'm proud of my colour. I like being a bit different from everybody else."

When you look into the symptoms particularly looking at aspergers. People tend to think of disabled as a more extreme condition, cant function normally. So when I got my diagnosis and my mom heard it was genetic, she went off on who she thought in the family had aspergers. Do they really have aspergers, probably not. The only person who Im convinced might actually be on the spectrum or borderline spectrum is my dad.

Ive have NT friends, who Im convinced are near the spectrum but their symptoms are milder to the point where its not clinically significant. One friend off this board was self-diagnosed aspie who later found out he wasnt aspie. He just has very bad social anxiety. His social ackwardness is likely due to being an immigrant and anxiety related. Im guessing hes near the spectrum. Another friend, I thought was on the spectrum but he reads people so well I dont think hes on the spectrum anymore. But I believe he's very close. But his social awkwardness is not clinically significant. He has rigid mannerisms, is antisocial, and has somewhat obsessive interests. But not aspie obessive or not that I know of.

While people may have 'trait's of autism it still doesn't mean they know what it like to constantly have those issues and be impaired by them. I think this is why so many people don't believe ADHD is a real disorder. It's real when your symptoms become so impairing that you can't get anything done.

Sometimes they say it to be well meaning, most times they say it to stop you from complaining. My strategy is to go through a list of failings people can't relate to. Bringing up synaethesia seems to make them back off. Not that it's a failing, people just think I'm so damn weird.

I find the argument that introversion is on the non-clinical end of the autism spectrum quite persuasive:

"Grimes' thesis explains that if you take each of the factors this new model proposes and follow it along a continuum to their most extreme expressions, they correlate with the widely used Baron-Cohen Autism Spectrum Quotient. Depending on how much we have of each factor (and how they interact with other personality traits), we can be simply introverted or, moving along the continuum, have Asperger's syndrome or, moving further yet, have autism."

"Consider, for example, that many of us tend to think slowly and are not quick at communicating. At the introvert level, no big deal. Take that communication difficulty and move it along the scale Grimes proposes and you get to Asperger's and then autism. Same with our tendency to focus deeply: At the healthy end of the scale that can be perseverance. Take it further, and you hit perseveration, which is not so good. Grimes suspects Aron's sensitivity theory is outside of introversion. 'That sounds like it belongs more in openness, the tendency to become frazzled and overwhelmed coupled with physical sensitivity is its own thing.'"

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the ... and-autism

http://etd.fcla.edu/CF/CFE0003090/Grime ... 005_MA.pdf

Last edited by Kon on 10 Aug 2011, 7:59 pm, edited 2 times in total.

It might be a better idea not to complain to NTs at all unless their your psych or disability specialists. Even my psych hates all the bitching. I mean Im in your office and you told me straightfowardly a couple times not to tone it down. I can be more cooperative if nessary. Damn even to think of it, my prof was a diability specialist and she was trying to normalize my issues. I only skimmed the surface with her cause Im not her client.

I'm slowly learning that I should leave all my complaits to the board or aspie friends. Admittedly I am a mild aspie, pretty much 99% of my symptoms breakdown to NTs trying to relate and tell me to stop overanalyzing, bitching, and control myself. To them, its probably just a mood/ lack of control problem. To them, Im a crazy weird NT.

I dont think I have any issues that exceed the range of normal. Im actually not sure??

It depends what you mean by "not to so good." If people obsessively follow different paths they will get further along those paths. if one of those paths is wildly successful for everyone then it makes the policy of encouraging crazy ideas worthwhile. That is how blue skies research works: give passionate people the time to follow their passions and one of them will come up with the next Internet. It is how evolution works: all these crazy creatures killing themselves and the ones who survive produce a stronger next generation for everyone. It does not matter if 99.9 percent appear to be total failures as long as the one success is big enough.

My own obsession is in creating a rational economic theory (current economic theory cannot be derived from pure logic and is thus not rational). I once calculated that if my theory is followed, it is worth one hundred trillion dollars (because it would double global economic growth, year on year) and also solve all major political (and thus social) and environmental problems. If a policy of encouraging obsession leads to just one theory like that, even if everyone else is obsessed over celebrities and train sets, it makes obsession a good policy.

The whole problem is that people are irrational. Combine that with the fact that they can't look into the future, and it basically becomes impossible to make a fully rational economic theory.

Maybe I should have said logical rather than rational. it is possible to derive the existence of property, and other basic concepts of economics, from pure logic. But you are right. That on its own carries no weight. People are motivated by many things, but a desire to be consistent is not one of them.

(A desire to appear consistent and believe in consistency is a motivation, but those are merely social and psychological pressures. Actually being consistent is not even on the agenda.)

Yes exactly!

I think this is technically true, but
the purpose of comments like "aren't we all a little ..." is to trivialize other's problems.
The result, unsurprisingly, is intense anger.

Interesting take, and though I agree with a lot of what Calista says here, I definitely don't agree with the flat statement "We are all somewhere on the spectrum."

The reason I don't agree is pretty simple.

WHAT spectrum? Or, WHICH spectrum are we talking about?

By definition to be considered "on the Autistic spectrum," one has to have a very particular, though somewhat ambiguous, set of symptoms. It has to be one of a finite set of combinations of symptoms. If one is missing but one of out of all the "subsets" of Autistic criteria, one is certainly not on the Autistic spectrum.

Granted, what constitutes Autism, and what doesn't, is entirely "made up." But so is every "definition" of all disorders. They are all "made up" in the sense that a group of people got together and decided there was a need to differentiate between certain people with apparent problems dealing with life, and people who don't apparently have the same problems. The rest of us decide for ourselves whether to agree, not agree, or accept certain parts of what is decided, and not accept others. The same is true with language.

It's all about communication so when somebody says to me, "We are all on the spectrum.", I simply ask, "What do you mean by that? Do you mean we are all Autistic in some way, or do you mean everything is a spectrum, as in, 'we are all part of the human spectrum'?"

I certainly do not agree that "we are all Autistic" in one way or another," but I can agree that there is a Human spectrum that we are all a part of.

The problem I have had with hearing the statement "We are all on the spectrum" is that I've almost always heard it from people who are clearly attempting to minimize the reality of Autism and its horrendous effects on the lives of Autistics. Most of the people I've heard say things like this are the same people who hear of one difficulty we have, and say, "Well, we ALL experience that at one time or another."

Yeah, I agree we all do experience any ONE of the negative things Autistics experience at some point in our lives, and often repeatedly, BUT those who do not have Autism certainly do NOT experience it anywhere NEAR as often, or consistently as we do.

Yes, there ARE "fuzzy areas" when it comes to determining whether a person has Autism or not, and it can seem fuzzy when comparisons are made between "non-Autistics" and Autistics. The problem i have with statements like "We are all on the spectrum" is the motivation behind saying it. Too often, the motivation behind making the statement isn't about being part of an exploration for deeper understanding. Too often it's a dismissal of responsibility. Too often I've heard it said as a means to dismiss the necessity of learning more about Autism.

If you put on a scratched up pair of glasses, and look at an HD television, it looks all fuzzy. But that doesn't mean the picture is really fuzzy, does it?

Learning more about Autism, especially learning more from Autistics themselves, is like cleaning the lenses on those glasses. Autism, even though it is still somewhat of a fuzzy concept, doesn't look quite as fuzzy to someone who has learned a great deal about it as it does to someone who hasn't. Unfortunately, I've been infuriated more than once by [supposed] professionals who have said things like "We are all on the spectrum," only to discover the real reason they're saying it is to dismiss any conception that they might need to learn more about it. Sadly, it has sometimes been part of an attempt to perpetuate the myth that they know more than I do.

Really? So you've lived with it for fifty years, and had three kids with it, a brother-in-law with it, and have read every book I have about it? Really?

Not!

Most of the time when I do hear the statement, it's meant innocently enough. Most of the people I have heard it from actually do have the right motivation for saying it. But it's because of that few percent that say it for the wrong reasons that I always ask, "What do you mean by that?"

Because those few cause a LOT of damage.

In a blog entry I wrote ages ago:

http://abnormaldiversity.blogspot.com/2008/03/moorchild.html

This is exactly what you get when so many insist that it isn't a disease.

People figure that there are better problems to focus on and won't give a damn about our problems.

Excellent stuff. People say it is good to be different. They really mean "the same as everyone else but more interesting." Really different means not fitting in. Genuinely not fitting in. Like there is no place for you. It means being unable to communicate despite being intelligent, unable to get a job despite being hard working, unable to get a girlfriend despite caring deeply." Their different is not our different.

'spectrum' is a metaphor. We need it to talk about the various autistic challenges and how we display them to the world.

One thing I've learnt from this discussion is the fact that the Autistic Spectrum is clinically distinct from the rest fo humanity. And it's digital - admittedly fuzzy-edged but still digital.

So anybody who uses the phrase does not understand this at all.

I guess one question to ask is 'what spectrum?'. If they are referring to a vague human spectrum they are talking about something totally different.

As for any claim of sharing a human spectrum

As WC Fields said 'On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia'.

My mother always says this, before being telling me to stop talking about rats all the time, because it's annoying and unnatural.

I don't say anything, but I do want to slap anyone who says this, lol.