Sorry I have to ask this

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I feel like most people believe that Ezra has been respectful, and just had a question to ask.

I don't think it's useful to rehash the past. Ezra has learned about the experiences of people who are "higher up" on the Spectrum. He has a different view of them now, versus then. And he will continue to learn as he grows up and becomes an adult.

By the same token, Ezra should realize that the majority realize that he had good intentions, and therefore should not adopt a defensive posture. This is not useful, either.

I used to do the same thing: adopt a defensive posture even though most people agreed with me. It did me no good. It made my reputation worse. It made more people disagree with me in the future because of how I came off.

This thread was going just fine and smoothly and everyone was sharing excellent info, until the Bird person came in with guns blazing and started a ruckus, apparently over something I said a couple of years ago.

The key factor that I was grasping for is, masking.

That's the answer to my question. The ability to mask. This never had to do with people "faking" autism. It had to do with people being able to mask their autism - which I consider to be a trait of autism - along the lines of mimicking to get by. That's all. Nothing for anyone to get upset over.

Last edited by EzraS on 28 Dec 2016, 7:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

To return to the original topic: you are ignoring the time aspect of this. A lot of problems that are obvious in childhood become masked in adulthood. Boo is a perfect example of this. You say yourself, Boo, that people don't know you are autistic. Yet you are.

Why people ignore it in childhood? A number of reasons: denial is a huge one in parents. Particularly if they have a lot of the same traits and somehow learned to cope.

Everyone else is probably just focusing on some other kid who is making a much bigger mess. I spend a lot of time with kids, and I've done some temping in schools. What I see is that the violent, rule-breaking kids get lots of attention. The rest of the attention goes for kids who manage to speak up and express their needs, and then you have the kids with obvious disabilities. The rest of the kids simpy don't get a lot of attention. In kindergarten, while the adhd boy is trying to escape across the fence, noboby notices the asd girl sitting in the same spot every day and digging holes. It's a feature of autism itself that the child doesn't make contact with adults, so the adults forget that they exist. Because they are not considered important, their meltdowns are dismissed as tantrums. And nobody notices the shutdowns.

Also, there was some research that showed that on average, autistic girls are a lot less stimmy than the boys. I think it's the stimming that catches people's attention.

Another one is.....when kids are small, they do all kinds of weird stuff. Once you start learning about adhd and autism and various learning disabilities, you see them everywhere. What becomes apparent over time is that most kids have something weird about them, but they usually outgrow it. Babies change their personalities every three months or so. Toddlers can struggle with something for half a year, and you think they will never learn, and then suddenly something in their minds goes "click", and it's as if it was never a problem.

In a lot of children, difficulties are similar, but mild. I know a girl who was mortally shy in kindergarten, and cried about every activity. Her dad has autistic traits. Yet when she started school, she started opening up and becoming more confident. There is no doubt in my mind that she is NT, based on body language. She really was just shy.

Also, I've seen some parents coming on WP and saying their kid was diagnosed with autism at 18 months or so. Unless the kid is really severely autistic, this seems unprofessional. Handing out a diagnosis for an 18 month old seems to me akin to reading in tea leaves. There is really very little information to go on.

Masking/passing is destructive to the psyche. I don't recommend it. Have you never masked, Ezra? If not, good for you, don't.

I feel like most people believe that Ezra has been respectful, and just had a question to ask.

I don't think it's useful to rehash the past. Ezra has learned about the experiences of people who are "higher up" on the Spectrum. He has a different view of them now, versus then. And he will continue to learn as he grows up and becomes an adult.

By the same token, Ezra should realize that the majority realize that he had good intentions, and therefore should not adopt a defensive posture. This is not useful, either.

I used to do the same thing: adopt a defensive posture even though most people agreed with me. It did me no good. It made my reputation worse. It made more people disagree with me in the future because of how I came off.

Yes exactly. Masking is what was missing that I was looking for. It is a factor that was eluding me at the time.

As for little kids behavior, I spent Christmas day with my 7 little cousins and they all act like complete lunatics.

I don't think I am able to mask. That may be where ToM comes into play if it does.

Last edited by EzraS on 28 Dec 2016, 7:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

Sorry. I double posted.

By "removing" the autism for a moment and you get people who range from high IQ to severe intellectual disability like in the "normal" (in this context I mean not-autistic) population.
Noone would ever call a non-autistic person with an average/above average IQ a "high-functioning NA" (non-autistic) and a non-autistic person with an intellectual disability a "low-functioning NA".

Noone would wonder that one can win a Nobel Price and other's don't.

The confusion in my opinion comes from the fact, that the intellectual disability in the so called low-functioning autistic population gets merged together with the autism, as if it were a symptom of autism, whereas intellectual disability also exists without autism.
As far as I know and I might be wrong were none of the original patients of Kanner and Asperger LFA.
I think it rather occurs with regressive autism.
Many people report that their children regressed after vaccines and they became autistic, but maybe it is more likely that they have vaccine-encephalopathy causing their regression.

In my opinion in regard to autism too much gets merged and mixed up.

Please can we refrain from talking about Ezra's past attempts to gatekeep the autistic community. Unless he tries to do it in this thread, then they're not relevant.

In particular, there was no need for so many people to chime in to verify what BirdInFlight had said. While these posts were well-intentioned, and the first one or two may have helped show that Bird wasn't lying, they surely only made Ezra feel like he was being ganged up on.

By the same token, I do not think BirdInFlight's behaviour could be fairly described as "aggressive", so please also avoid attacking her. Suggesting that someone who doesn't like you is a "crybaby" could constitute a personal attack, which is against the WrongPlanet rules.

WrongPlanet aims to be equally accommodating for people across the autistic spectrum. Gatekeeping in either direction is not acceptable.

Thanks.

Masking is like acting.



Androbot's Top 5 Tips for Masking:

1) Keep your head up and look at things (like when driving a car.)
2) Make brief and poignant eye contact. By this I mean that if you pick an important moment in the conversation to make eye contact, you only have to maintain it briefly to get a lot of points for it.
3) Repeat what the person has said back to them. This allows time to think of a response while simultaneously showing that you are paying attention.
4) Control facial expressions so as not to appear to be frowning.
5) Do not script! Stay in the moment.

As for ToM, that comes over time. But you can try games like imagining yourself in the other person's position and possible ways they could be approaching the situation.

I don't necessarily agree with this, though I absolutely agree with everything you've said about how difficult it is to feel less normal than the people that outwardly are not.

From the social side, absolutely I think there's a unique and incredibly difficult challenge to being just 'not quite normal enough' on the grand scale.

But, other aspects of autism make me think of how hard it would be to be Level 2 or Level 3. Already, I feel like many of my thoughts are locked inside me - like I can't verbalise beyond short sentences in real life, when there are so many complex things going on in my head. To be non-verbal, or even more non-verbal than I am, would feel like a prison. Now, I might come across as a bit dull or shallow in my conversation, and for my age I may not seem like I have much to say, but I've survived my life perfectly able to express enough to get things done and to make my opinions heard on even a basic level. To not be able to do that would be very difficult indeed.

Likewise, getting overwhelmed. I get overwhelmed by busy. My sensory sensitivities are relatively minimal. I shut down in busy places and that's difficult, but there's never been anywhere that I have simply been unable to be. Even at my worst, I can hold out for as long as required in my shut down state. I have never had a meltdown from being overwhelmed in public - I can hold everything together until I have my privacy. To not be able to do that, again would be very difficult.

My practical skills are significantly lower than I'd like. I can't cope with housework tasks and would be unlikely to be able to manage the bills and landlord negotiations if anything happened to my husband. Since my diagnosis, I've been acutely aware that this is the main area where I may need help in future just because I am not able to communicate with strangers comfortably, I struggle with phone calls and frankly, I do not even know what is involved in keeping utilities running (and other similar house-y things!). But, I live with my husband and my daughter and I am extremely happy and comfortable. And if anything did happen, with some support from others I could continue to live independently. Many don't get that luxury.

What does that mean and when have I done it?




But no problem if you call Ezra the "gatekeeper" rude and aggressive.




It's suggesting someone shouldn't get into online arguments if they can't handle being in an argument.

As far as witnesses go, they can't seem to remember when, where or what the title of this infamous thread is. Just that it took place sometime between 2 years and a few months ago. And it's quite possible they took sides, which would obscure their objectivity.

Could someone explain what gatekeep/gatekeeper means? So far I'm only finding references to smoking dope and sexual intercourse. If I'm gonna be accused of something, I'd like to know what it means.

I think gatekeeping refers to guarding/keeping the gate against those who are not entitled to enter. In this case it would mean passing judgment on the extent of one's autism.

I don't think you meant to be a "gatekeeper." I believe you are learning that autism is a spectrum, and not one single disorder.

You would be a "gatekeeper," in this context, should you believe that the diagnosis of autism should only be made to people who are "blatantly" autistic, and have relatively severe needs because of being autistic. That there would be no doubt, upon first glance, that any individual is autistic.

That people with "less severe" autism, and who have lived "regular" lives, should not be put in the same category as the relatively more severely affected person, who has not lived a "regular" life, and who have had significant and blatant needs all their lives.

In rather simplistic terms, all this illustrates the difference between classic/Kanner autism and the generalized "Aspergian"-type of autism.