AS lite?

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I am curious as to how many folks here have been told by psychiatrists and the like that they have
'a touch of the spectrum' in them, or 'AS lite' and subsequently felt/feel that in some way their struggles and their 'difference' has been minimalized?

I ask this because as a child I had to disassociate myself from my autistic self and form an NT personality in order to avoid being daily humiliated and abused. Subsequently my adaptive skills contributed enormously to me appearing NT on the outside but just as Aspie as anyone else on the inside.

My life story was very smiler to Caiseal Mor http://www.mahjee.com/pages/blessing.html

and also Donna Williams http://www.donnawilliams.net/about.0.html

Both these people used their incredible creative skills to adapt and survive in a would that was for the most part deeply wounding to their psyches, subsequently out of sheer ingenuity and determination to survive, they too past on the outside as NT and disassociated themselves from their true autistic nature.

Chris

Well, I don't know about incredible creative skills, but I passed for normal for half a century.

Well, I managed to hold down jobs, most of the time; to raise children; and most importantly to believe that how I was was the standard by which how other people were could be measured.

Sure, there were a few things that didn't fit but - manfully - I managed to ignore those.

It always sounds belittling to me now, to hear that I have "mild" aspergers. The purpose and value of my entire life have been stolen from me, and all I have to show for it is "mild" aspergers. I think I'll go outside and shoot myself.

I was just hospitalized and the psychiatrist said he thought I had "AS Lite." I explained to him how this is BS because my functional IQ as measured by the Vineland II is 60. He was just completely thrown off by my ease of conversation, since my verbal IQ is 131. I felt put off and unvalidated. I explained to him that the whole reason I'm on disability is AS, not bipolar, since I've been stable on bipolar 4 years.

I've wondered about that. Do you mean because of degree of severity or because of not quite there in the criteria? My deficits are so much more evident in social. Antidepressants helped me immensely in communication and I wish I had an all consuming obsession (one that I could have turned into a career). I did not form an NT personality though, I just concentrated on being unnoticeable. I was not pushed to be more social or less focused on a special interest in my family though, I think because they were basically the same.

I have mild AS myself or AS lite as you call it, that was decided by the paediatrician and my parents. Socially I get by, I have a few friends that I see sometimes. Obsessiveness and special interests don't take over anymore and I don't have strict routines (I am very stubborn about other things though). But my executive dysfunction is probably the thing that isn't so mild, I have always struggled with homework because of it and also immaturity and childlike behaviour has caused me trouble at home with tantrums and stuff.
What I don't get though is that fact that my mum always reminds me of how "mild" I am and keep saying "remember you are really mild and probably won't be noticed by your friends etc etc and you're not like them people on the documentaries you know that don't you..." but then at the same time insists that I put Aspergers on every application form of everything I go to, at my second college interview one of the first, no actually the first thing she mentioned was the AS and on some form we filled in there was a section where you mention any conditions I may have, so my mum wrote "aspergers - autism specturm disorder" and I told her to put mild on because I don't want people getting the wrong idea about me, but she didn't. She's just contradicting herself.

I think there is a category that may describe "AS lite," and that catagory is PPD-NOS (Prevasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified." The three main conditions that is encompassed by the autism spectrum is autistid disorder, Aspergers disorder and PPD-NOS. Other conditions that may considered part of the autism spectrum include child disintegrative disorder, fragile X disorder, and Retts syndrome. There may be more, but these are the ones I am aware of.

I have never been told this by a psychiatrist, criss..... however.... I think you are dead on with what you are saying. It is as if I, too, have had to create an NT persona to "survive" in a world where my autistic ways are perceived as weird, wrong, strange, etc.

That is a really interesting way of looking at it, too - by the way. I also feel like I have abandoned some part of myself to be who I superficially appear to be. It has left me searching for who I really am for a significant portion of my life. I actually told my psychiatrist that it is as if I have been watching some sort of 3D movie that I am only just now finding came equipped with a set of 3D glasses. Like the discovery of Asperger's and Autism has been almost and "awakening" for me..... a realization of where the essence of "me" actually springs from.

Okay... I sound like a flake now.... sorry.......

It seems to me we live in a world that is always so keen to separate things.

I would like to think that in the future there will be highly developed and specialized centers where people with HFA/AS will be treated with the respect we deserve. Centers where we will be seen as people with a unique neurology and psychology combined.

The other day I saw a wild and beautiful floral design that was growing up an old wall, I observed two primary stems, both seemed to be dancing and interwoven around the other. This delighted me, as I saw how this so beautifully conveyed to me how I see myself. A Soul with a neurology and psychology, and the mystery of where one starts and the other ends.

I see my autism as all pervading and part of everything I do say or think.

I personally feel is a real tragedy that there are so many people with HFA/AS who commit suicide, and I feel that many of these people could have been seen as 'Lite' cases by the 'professionals' Primarily because their hidden disability remained hidden.

I was lucky, I was Dx by a wonderful woman, who was a fully qualified psychologist, who also has AS herself, so she knew well, all the tricks of concealment and suffering, as well as the great gift of being in the spectrum.

Chris

I think I am AS lite myself.