Faking autism and Faking aspergers

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autism0,

Your anecdote is erroneous for a number of reasons, but I'll point out one that's obvious: those with Asperger's usually thrive in the primary school setting, it's when one hits high school that everything begins to unravel. Even autistic disorder follows this pattern.

I can provide objective and clinical sources if you so wish (I'm just lacking in the required motivation to find the links at the moment).

And also, there's nothing wrong with withdrawing socially, even if one is completely "normal".

Don't most colleges provide psychiatric care? I know that the community college and university here have either psychologists or psychiatrists, perhaps both, that you can see for free. Perhaps some of the people that are unable to afford to see any professionals could try enrolling for a semester to use the psych care/rehab. I don't know how good they would be or if it would be any help at all, it's just a thought.

As for the original topic, i would probably exaggerate my symptoms to get out of an unpleasant situation. Unfortunately for me no one in my family that knows i have AS would really care, they would say i was using it as a crutch, and i have never told anyone that i have it. So it wouldn't serve any purpose for me.

Strangely, I did ok at primary school, starting to unravel about age 8, had about 5 very bad years,
then developed an effective persona for highschool,
then went backwards again after 18.

My life has sort of been like trying to climb a ladder and falling off it again and again.

This sounds like a pure assumption, and a rather ungrounded one. There could be a myriad reasons for her to behave the way she did - including, but not limited to, depression, social anxiety which had hit at puberty, or natural personality development, none of which have ANYTHING to do with a person faking an autism spectrum disorder. Unless she told you or someone else directly that she has AS, or had at least hinted at it, it's highly likely that she had no intention whatsoever to fake AS, or, for that matter, anything at all.

One's teens is a time when most personality traits become especially noticeable, which is aggravated by the social and academic pressure at high school; for instance, sensitive traits tend to become very obvious (so that, for example, a child with a mixed sensitive-cyclothymic personality, who had previously been cheerful, sociable and open, albeit slightly shy and easily driven to tears, can suddenly become extrelemely shy, awkward and reserved), in cyclothymia-inclined people there can be a sudden switch from vivacious and outgoing to thoughtful and quiet or vice versa, etc.

Various psychiatric disorders - from full-blown bipolar to schizophrenia - also typically begin when one is in one's mid teens to early twenties.

To assume that someone must be faking an ASD just because they had become more withdrawn sounds, at best, rather far-fetched and strange.

(sorry for sounding as if I am reading from a textbook - just can't put these things any other way)

Last edited by ixochiyo_yohuallan on 25 Mar 2008, 2:04 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I know I can't bridge the gap about how life was before Asperger's Syndrome, Daniel. But please understand the history of what life was like before the luxury of diagnosis and treatment. You were either the quick or the dead. and that's a fact.
I suppose for some elite few there was hospitalization and bodily care, but for the rest of us it was back bedrooms, nailed down windows, bound to beds so we didn't wander off. My father would toss me into the bathtub and turn cold water on me when I was in melt down. Poor man, he had no resources to turn to, even if his fierce embarrassment of what I was would let him consult with a doctor. There was conforming or the institution and I was threatened all my life with that, if I didn't adapt myself to my environment. It is pitiful, but there is something to be said for constant bullying and prodding and threats and corporal punishment. I survived because I survived, others didn't, and that is just the way of it. My cousins tried to drown me, my mother did not respond when I knocked the wind out of me, and could not breathe, although I saw her peeping behind the curtain. when I was 17 and sexually active, they finally put me into the institution for being 'incorrigible' as they believed I had just been intentionally doing it just to spite them all along.

There was nothing for me in the institution back in 1968, they had no clue what was up with me because I didn't fit into any other diagnosis, and the shock treatments were still the preferred mode of 'getting through' to anyone not responding 'correctly'.

now I know you are having an intellectual conversation where these personal references don't even dent your consciousness, but I know I have tried.

Merle

wow, that sounds like she was raped or molested. I remember feeling like that when I was.

Merle

Danielismyname,

I guess I know where you are coming from. I also have an issue with people who flaunt their "gloominess" and "disillusionment with life", dress in black just to show how low they are feeling, etc., and believe that there is something romanic and attractive about depression. Whenever I run into one of them I feel they have no idea what they are talking about. Depression is a very ordinary, mundane and ugly condition. There is nothing romantic about drifting through day after day half-dozing, weak, incapable of concentrating for a longer stretch of time, with tangled hair and dirty clothes, wishing that one didn't have to get out of bed altogether in the morning, and crying now and then simply because something is squeezing one's chest and won't let go (or, worse still, wanting to cry but being unable to because one's emotions seem to have been completely extinguished) - and then, at the end of it, feeling as if entire months or years have been crossed out of one's life. But then I cannot really explain it to them.

I do wonder though, what if someone is 100 percent autistic (officially diagnosed autistic, if you like), and have really achieved something on their own terms? What does one do - try to prove that they are not autistic after all, as autistic people cannot be capable of doing what they did? I've seen this happen (thankfully, not here, but elsewhere) and it is every bit as disturbing as the whole Einstein et al. thing.

Last edited by ixochiyo_yohuallan on 25 Mar 2008, 2:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

As Merle so graciously puts it: life in the 60s and the 70s wasn't like it is today. No one in their right mind would have thought to "play" ASD. Survival lay in "playing" NT, if at all possible.

As I've seen the concept of "you're no longer/you've outgrown ASD" put:



2

not pointing fingers btw.

just another random post fot the thread

you lose points here.

even amongst diagnosed people there is great variability and i bet you'd find a skew in functioning (level) for DXed people as to who is "accomplishing" all this stuff that is "rarely achieved".

that has nothing to do with DX... more about strictly functioning lvl... which is an uncontrolled variable in this argument cause it's the higher functioning people who are inherently harder to DX to begin with...

edit: my second paragraph isnt even strictly correct and sorry if i offended anyone..... bah

edit: i guess i mean that you can't say you need a professional to say whether or not you have a DX... then YOU, say that such and such people DON'T have it because of x,y, or z... just cause you have a DX doesn't make you a professional.

autism00, one big problem with your argument is that autistic traits can be variable over time. Nobody's behavior is absolutely consistent from situation to situation. Like the girl in your anecdote, I was much more withdrawn in high school. I wasn't "giving up" or trying to "fake" anything. That was simply the way which I was best able to cope with tremendous anxiety. For someone who professes to know a lot about AS/autism, you sure don't understand how stressful many new situations can be for those on the spectrum (not to mention many others). You keep saying that people feign autism, but have yet to provide much concrete evidence for the claim. As others have mentioned, your anecdote proves nothing and your analysis is pretty off. A lack of desire to participate in high school social activities does not equate to hypochondria. (Actually, I admit to being something of a physical illness hypochondriac during my first few years of high school, but that was only because going to school was so overwhelming and anxiety-inducing, not because I was looking for attention or sympathy.) It's also not unheard of for AS traits to become more pronounced due to increased stress or major life change or trauma. In many ways my AS was more "obvious" at age 14 than age 5, but this was the result of circumstance and being more obviously different from my peers at that age.

About self-diagnosis: NewportBeachDude, no one is talking about self-diagnosis as a means to get official services. I think most of understand why an official dx can be useful in certain situations. The issue is whether someone self-diagnosed is "lying" and I think that's clearly untrue. Many dictionary definitions of lying will include deliberate intent. If someone honestly believes they are AS and says so, that's not lying even if a professional might not agree. (Professionals don't always agree with each other, anyway.) Most self-dxed people have not been to a professional specializing in adult autism as of yet, and not all are able to do so for financial reasons. I repeat that as long as someone is honest about their self-diagnosis, it is not deceitful. If someone wants to be skeptical about self-dx, that's their choice. But ost professional diagnoses aren't completely clear-cut, either. There's no 100% accurate test for AS as of yet. I have been professionally diagnosed and I sometimes worry whether it's really okay for me to tell people when I'm quite high-functioning. Unlike Danielismyname, I don't see any problem with self-dxed people discussing their experiences online as long as they're upfront about not having an official dx. So what if some of them can do certain things that some (not all) officially diagnosed people can't? As long as they're not trying to say "if I can do it, so can you" then I don't see a problem. It is also my understanding that many self-dxed people are of a different generation than I am, and thus didn't have an opportunity to be diagnosed when they were younger. Perhaps they were disabled at a younger age but have learned to adapt. AS is so new that it's hard to say.

I stated my opinion and it's valid. Self-diagnosis only works for certain people, that's the point I was making. You can get away with that as an adult, but in order to move forward and help an Aspie minor, you need a diagnosis because supporters need to know what they're dealing with.

And, you really think the reason why people self-diagnose is because there's not enough professionals out there who know adult Autism? Okay.

I'm not trying to argue, just stating my peace.

I'm not denying that a diagnosis can be helpful, but I think it is perfectly possible for parents to recognize the child's needs without a diagnosis. I assume that most parents do that, even if a diagnosis helps. I have relatives who helped their aspie kids with no diagnosis, because that was the times they lived in.



It hardly seems unreasonable. Other reasons may include finances and health insurance, distrust of professionals due to previous bad experiences, lack of a person who knew the person when they were a child and can corroborate information, fear about negative consequences of a diagnosis, social stigma from others, rejection of the medical model of Asperger's, and many more. I don't really think it's my place to judge why a person doesn't have an official diagnosis yet, but YMMV.

But on the other hand, maybe you can't help exaggerating the symptoms - or letting them become more visible. I can fake normal socialization for a little while... I mean, pretending to make eye contact (watching mouths or chests), hiding stims (or doing ones that aren't as noticeable), putting up with irritating sound, staying away from other people so that I don't react to touch... but then as the stress of doing so increases, so do my overt "autistic" behaviors. It's not deliberate. It demonstrates a need I have, that maybe even I haven't noticed yet.

And maybe some people with legitimate diagnoses do exaggerate their behaviors deliberately, precisely because it is a way to achieve what they need (privacy, stress release, etc.). I don't do this - with me it isn't deliberate - but I wouldn't necessarily accuse someone who did it on purpose of faking. Maybe that was their need as an autistic person. (However, I do accept the point re: a person who is not autistic and yet engages in the behaviors completely deliberately.)

Just for the record, I have three professional diagnoses (from three different types of doctor) and not one anti-diagnosis.

Here's why I went the professional route.

I can vividly, painfully remember being 12 years old, sitting in my bedroom and thinking, "I am crazy. Someday, someone is going to lock me up." I did things none of my friends did. Things I never saw anyone on TV do (sure, I'd never actually saw anyone use the bathroom, but they advertised toilet paper, so, you know, point taken). I collected things no one seemed to understand (ah, the summer of the p**** willows comes to mind. A huge box of p**** willows taken from our tree. Big ones. Medium-sized ones. Little ones). I was unnerved by things that bothered no one else (sirens, balloons, the theme to "Lassie"). I was always picking at my nails or licking my lips (then wiping the sides of my mouth, eventually leaving marks). I was interested--no, obsessed--with things no one cared about. Every article of clothing I owned drove me nuts (which, in turn, pissed off my mother). I was a mess at school. Yep, it was only a matter of time before someone carted me off.

College. I'm taking a television production class. I wanted to be behind-the-scenes. So many buttons and wonderful gadgets. But no, I get roped into being in front of the camera. I'm horrifed. Reading aloud has never been a strong suit. But I practice and practice and practice and then, still, I'm horriifed. Not by what comes out of my mouth but by what I see. I appear to be making faces. Nothing definable. Not a grimace or anything. But my eyes are darting everywhere, and my mouth keeps turning down on one side. While I would never connect this to anything 'til years later, it's haunted me ever since. I see the same thing on family videos and it mortifies me. What must I look like to others?

Flash-forward to the birth of my son in '01. I'd been long-since diagnosed ADHD, but embarrassment has kept me from telling my then-doctor the full story (said doc stopped taking insurance a few years ago and that was probably for the best. When my son was diagnosed he told me he knew nothing about autism!). 18 months later in '02, our pediatrician agreed with our concerns regarding our son. When I mentioned this to our neighbor (a woman who works with special needs kids and whose spouse is HFA), saying I didn't know where this had come from, she sort of smiled. "You think it's me?" I asked. She said yes, saying she'd suspected I might be on the spectrum all along, but why bring it up?

Over the next few years my son gets therapy from the "First Steps" program. As I watch his struggles with motor skills (both fine and gross), his fixation on the strangest things, and other achingly familiar behaviors (he started crying over songs as I had, ran repetitive patterns when excited, just as I had...) I couldn't help but wonder if my neighbor was right. My son would graduate from First Steps, and two more years would pass before I seriously started looking at myself.

Two factors led to my decision: One, I was still haunted by that little girl who feared for her sanity. Someone, a professional, had to know everything. Every screwed up thing I could recall, every goofy thing I've done or still do, no matter how odd or embarrassing. Two, I was so incredibly tired of explaining why I did things, didn't do things, didn't like this or did like that. I didn't know why. I just did. But that was never enough for people, so I spent years trying to come up with expanations for why I hated balloons or why I didn't want to go to those awful shows down in Branson my father-in-law endlessly badgers me about. All I knew was I didn't want to--shouldn't that have been enough? Apparently it wasn't, and with all the other things in my head (the words of my neighbor, watching my son engage in some of the very things I did and, finally, an AS self-test that suggested I see a doctor), I went.

But I didn't tell this new doctor why. I simply said I was stressed out (which, God knows, I was), and as the session progressed I began to talk about my childhood. He didn't seem remotely shocked. I would love to know what I am doing that is alerting those who know something of AS/autism that somethng is going on (an aside: after my diagnosis I said to my mother, "Maybe it's the stuff I do with my face?" To which she replied, "Oh, do you think he noticed that?" I was floored. She'd been noticing that all these years and said nothing? What the hell!? I realize some people may think today's parents are overzealous in rushing in and getting their kids checked out, but mine were, God, I just don't know ).

So that's why I did it. I needed to know, for that scared little kid, what was going on. For others, the self-test may be enough. A gut feeling may be enough. For me, I had to go all the way.

Something I haven't seen said here is that autism is a spectrum, and that there are variations within the categories of Kanners, Aspergers, PDD-NOS, etc. There are people who have quite severe autism who accomplish much that others don't - Temple Grandin comes to mind. No one seems to know why there is this variation, but I suspect that the brain is so complex that the result is a tremendous potential for diversity on the spectrum. The categories of Aspergers etc. are the attempts of professionals to cluster similar characteristics of those on the spectrum. Since no two people are alike, the categories at times do not seem to exactly fit anyone. As Lorna Wing said:



Some of us grew up in a time of absolutely no educational or social awareness or assistance for the difficulties we faced as children. We toughed it out. The drive and focus that some of us have as a result of our being on the autistic spectrum has made it possible for us to achieve things in spite of being ostracized as children, having difficulties holding it together to attend school, having learning disabilities, or being socially awkward and phobic. Some on the spectrum learn to compensate so well that with age, it appears that they don't have any kind of disorder - but it is still there, and it can still be exhausting to get through a "normal" day. And some of us aren't diagnosed because we are advised against being diagnosed - we are out of our formative years and often there isn't much that anyone can or will do for us. But that is OK because, when you've reached middle age, you sometimes come to accept your differences, to embrace them, and to go about your business.

Z

P.S. I'm personally going for an evaluation/diagnosis, but there are others who don't feel that they need to, they've accomplished much, and they still have AS.