The NTs. The ASD, and THE THIRD KIND

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Hi Electric Kite,

Nice to know more of my kind out there...

I believe my brother is in that category. I always felt we were quite similar even though I was diagnosed and he wasn't.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the difference between broader autism phenotype and PDD-NOS?

Maybe this is where i fit...i mean...I am not diagnosed...I don't know if I could be diagnosed....but I am pretty sure I am somewhere on the spectrum as I have so many traits, and I have so many family members who have exhibited traits....

rawwr...this is the first I have heard of broader autism phenotype.....now I am really confused.

My sister's got a 'touch of the tarbrush' but she wouldn't really be affected enough to rate a dx. She's always been in fulltime work and in a longterm relationship, so obviously she doesn't have too many problems with it. She's a hoarder and just slightly eccentric though. Socially I find her a bit stilted or phony but she manages to have a social life. She and her man met in the science faculty at uni, so I guess it's like 'the nerd' thing rather than a seriously disabling thing. I think there is a proviso in the DSM that AS should have had a largely negative effect on your life.

BAP isn't a "severe" disorder, as those with such aren't "impaired" in the areas defined when in comparison to their peers. They may have some social difficulties (nothing serious, however), but they also have the positives of Autism/Asperger's (the ability to focus intently on one subject for example). BAP can be found in parents/relatives of individuals with a diagnosable condition.

PDD-NOS is a broad category, which can range from "mild" Asperger's [due to subthreshold symptomatology], up to near-Autism. PDD-NOS is a "severe" disorder.

I guess I am "impaired" enough compared to people my own age that I am more likely PDD-NOS...or something.....

I thought, rather, that it isn't a disorder at all. "A subclinical set of personality and other features thought to index genetic liability..."

I do have a hell of a time holding down a job, but my problems, though they're very like those of people with AS, are likely not big enough to be 'clinical.' There is some line to be drawn between having a disorder and being a twitchy irritating asocial eccentric. I am suprised and amused to find that my perculiar personality and cognitive and behavioral oddities so closely reflect a 'syndrome,' but for the most part I'm probably more 'put out and incredibly irritated' than 'impaired and disabled.'

Where the line between's gonna fall would have to be cultural, which is the funny and annoying bit.

How affected by the symptoms I was is a funny point. If you ask my teachers and parents, I guess they did not think much of it. They probably thought I was just a shy nerd. But if you had asked me as a child (from the first day at kindergarden) through age 17, I can say that every single day at school I was stressed out being around the other kids. I loved learning but I hated being around my classmates. The fact that I did not have friends then made me very depressed. I was the "odd one" in every school I attended. I got picked on. I think the level of anxiety this caused in me was VERY high. I dealt with it by sticking part of my hand in my mouth at home all the time until the age of 12!! My parents would punish me severely for doing so yet I could not stop. It was a compulsion. And it felt like the relief of a drug in every sense. But I knew enough not to do it at school. Would this be some sort of stimming? Now I see my son with autism do it and I wonder... (Of course, he will have the benefit of parents that will not punish him for doing it.)

You, me, and the badger, ASDMOM. The only childhood friend I had for any length of time was the not-quite-retarded kid that nobody would play with. Loved learning, hated school, I'd vomit every morning waiting for the school bus, from the anxiety.

Would I have been diagnosed AS if I was born fifteen years later? If my parents had not divorced and provided a circumstance to blame? If I had been raised in a more urban setting instead of on an edge between a very wealthy 'hobby estate' neighborhood and a poor rural one, resulting in constant contact with teachers who viewed the hayseed/trailer trash kids like myself as faulty anyway? If I'd lived with my dad and my stepmother, who was really freaked out by me at seven and probably would have taken it to the pros if I'd been there all year round? If my mother hadn't been wonked out on amitriptyline for a couple of my single-digit years? How about if her father hadn't been awfully 'BAP' himself?

I extend this thought to one of my great-grandfathers, who is reported to have said perhaps six words a day, half of them being "Amen." The only lengthy (and not very, at that) verbal communication any of the (now dead) people who remembered him recalled him making was to remark that people ought not to leave their horses standing around in-harness for hours, as it made the horses bored and uncomfortable. Aside from being well ahead of his time in regard to thoughts of animal welfare, he was quite a successful farmer who 'squandered' his wealth over-educating (again, so forward-thinking for the period) his daughters. Today, would he have learned to "live happily and richly with others and develop a wholesome personality"? Or would he be where Daniel is now?

Yeah, there are definitely people in the in-between place. Sometimes I am in that in-between place, though when I am stressed I get all stimmy and oversensitive and melt down.

Sounds like my friend. He scores as NT on the quiz except for one huge spike on the AS side!

This is how I feel about myself too... I mean in some ways I'm very Aspie, like how I stim (though the meds I am on make them worse, akanesia problems) and how I have very intense obsessive interests, but I don't have problems reading faces. But I believe I was worse as a child, when I took everything literally for example.