Can you become autistic from being on Wrong Planet too much?

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People can learn to mimic signs of autism, but they will never have the actual pervasive developmental disorder.

Not to state the obvious but autism isn't something you just contract like the common cold or herpes..

Like any horribly unproductive task such as internet usage, you're more than likely to become more socially awkward/inept if you spend alot of time on it. Obviously you won't become autistic, maybe socially awkward, sure.

..But if you believe hard enough it could come true...at least that's what the furries think.

No, going to a website does not change your neurology. People where autistic long before going to this website. :B

Actually, a lot of autistic people use social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. because it is easier to be social and interact with people online than off. Using Facebook isn't a particularly NT thing. Some autistic people don't see the point of these sites, but so too do some people who are not autistic.

Yeah. These days I just hand people slips of paper with printed words on them, usually insulting them for having another opinion to mine.

Wrong Planet is a social site. If logging into social internet sites is NT, I guess none of us are autistics.

Indeed.

I think last year's Autistics Speaking Day (and this year's, on November 1st) was pretty good as far as discussion of this sort of thing went:

http://autisticsspeakingday.blogspot.com/

All of you who say no are totally wrong. You guys seriously have no idea.

The mind is very powerful. It is capable of tricking itself several times over.

While it is true that I've always had autistic traits, when I was younger I never let it get to me. I never really thought about it. I was just this weird introverted dude, if you know what I mean.

Then I discovered AS and joined WP. All of a sudden I started thinking about AS every 2 minutes. I adopted aspie tendencies that I never had before, as some sort of way to fulfill this identity. By thinking constantly about AS, I never even tried not to act like I don't have it. I saw the entire world in shades of AS and NT. Every time I talked to anyone all I could think was "I'm such an aspie, and I'm surrounded by NT's."

It became quite ridiculous, and it took quite a bit of convincing evidence just to make me slightly skeptical.

My special interest is no longer AS, and as such, I haven't been posting here as much. I just don't care anymore. Yes, I might indeed be an aspie. I might not. But it doesn't matter. Yes, I'm a nerd. Yes, I'm socially awkward. so what?

And guess what? I'm only half the aspie I once was, just because of a simple change in the way I view myself.

WP does not change neurology. Even a 6 year old could figure that out. But spending time here changes the brain software, if you get my analogy. And guess what? AS is diagnosed by software (behavior), not hardware (neurological wiring).

It's no different from spending time with a group of a**holes, calling a**holes friends, and becoming an a**hole. You might not be an a**hole by birth, but you have adopted the behavior of a**holes by spending time with them.

You might be able to fool yourself into thinking you were autistic. However, you wouldn't actually become autistic. It's a developmental condition that is most likely genetic. You don't acquire it later in life like the common cold, as others have mentioned. That said, your symptoms could change or get worse later in life due to increased exposure to triggers or sensory overload. It could also be that the environment stayed about the same, but your coping techniques could not keep up. Hence, even though it was always there, it only become problematic enough to be recognized later in life.

That seems possible. It seems pretty common for high IQ individuals with ADD to experience academic difficulty once they reach college because the complexity and amount of course work is simply overwhelming compared to easier high school work, so it's possible to have an underlying AS neurology that doesn't present significant problems during childhood because you're too introverted to care until having the ability to efficiently communicate with everyday peers is necessary to work in group environments like most workplaces, whereas it wasn't previously needed for completing coursework during the earlier years.

This is actually quite common for autistic people first learning they're autistic and being around other autistic people. It seems less common and less likely for people who aren't autistic in the first place.

But maybe it's incredibly common for certain types of non-autistic people or half-autistic people who happen to share a few similarities with aspies. Like, say, high IQ socially awkward introverts? Or socially awkward boring and weird nerds? Or maybe weirdos, period? Or possibly schizoids or near-schizoids or near-schizophrenic people? Or people with non-autistic communication difficulties like ADD individuals or people with Specific Language Impairment? Or OCD individuals? There might be a lot of NTs who may be tempted to assimilate and adopt Wrong Planet's culture and assume the "Aspie identity" because of being somewhat similar at the surface but are actually structurally different.

I know that I don't "stim", I don't have "sensory sensitivities", nor do I seem to possess stereotypical repetitive behavior but yet I seem to identify with Wrong Planet's culture and I seem to have many similar types of social and cognitive difficulties as the people on Wrong Planet. Maybe I'm aspie or maybe I'm not, but if I'm not, then fooling myself into believing I'm aspie is not going to help me one iota in real life. If anything, it's going to be harmful as I'm going to unnecessarily undercut myself.

Autism is not like teh ghey. You can't "catch" it by hanging around people who have it.

You could "catch it" by fooling yourself into believing you have autism and you start "acting" more and more autistic as you learn more about it. (Like, say, a person thinks "Oh, look, it says that people with autism don't have good eye contact! I'm autistic so I guess I'm not good at maintaining eye contact." and then they go onto have worse eye contact in real life because their beliefs influence their behavior.)

Last edited by swbluto on 24 Oct 2011, 10:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Neurotypical people who hang around autistic people act autistic as NTs naturally mimic the behavior of those around them, however they do not turn autistic as autism is something you are born with, and the very thing that makes NTs act autistic in these situations is part of what makes them not autistic, if that makes any sense.

Yes, NTs may "act autistic" when imitating the autistic behavior of someone autistic, but those NTs don't believe they have autism so it's not a long-lasting affect when they go to interact with other NTs. An NT who hangs on the forum and convinces themselves of being autistic might, however, not be spared the damaging long-term effects of that self-concept.

Last edited by swbluto on 24 Oct 2011, 10:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.