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Autism = "Crazy"?

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swbluto
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17 Oct 2011, 5:15 pm

Ok, so if you guys are really wondering what other people are thinking of when they think of the word crazy (And they're not thinking of "Wild fun" kind of crazy), Janissy has it pretty much spot on:

Quote:
The colloquial definition of crazy is "doesn't share consensus reality" which is not quite the same as "doesn't share the most common type of neurology". You can have a neurology different from many people but still share consensus reality, as apparently happens here on WP. It is very rare that a poster says something that indicates they do not share consensus reality. On the few ocassions it happens, other posters will gently suggest a psychiatrist. This is my way of saying that "shares consensus reality" does not mean "thinks like everybody else".


If your way of thinking/experiencing is so alien to everyone else such that your perception of reality is very dissimilar to your peers, you're going to be thought of as crazy by most people. Note, I'm not necessarily talking about "hallucinations" here, I'm just talking about your understanding of reality and your way of viewing it. (And your way of expressing yourself, too.)



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17 Oct 2011, 6:15 pm

swbluto wrote:
Callista wrote:
There's different definitions of the word "Crazy" that they might be talking about.

A. "Any psychological disorder."
Boy, this is a big category. You've got everything from arachnophobia to bulimia nervosa to Alzheimer's. In this case, yeah, autism fits; but most people wouldn't call many of those things "crazy". For example, I don't think people would call you "crazy" for having ADHD, which is a psychological disorder. And I'm pretty sure they don't call people who have dementia as the result of a stroke "crazy", either.

B. "Any acquired non-developmental psychological disorder not due to physical injury or damage."
This category includes everything that you aren't born with and doesn't involve physical damage to the brain. So that leaves out the stroke patients, Alzheimer's, and ADHD, and it also leaves out autism. But it leaves in things like dysthymia (low-level, long-term depression), the phobias, and personality disorders like OCPD (a personality type which is very rigid, structured, and perfectionistic). Most people wouldn't call those things "crazy" either.

C. "Any acquired non-developmental psychological disorder not due to physical injury or damage, which involves psychosis."
And here we are. This is probably the one definition of "crazy" that everybody could agree on. And it's actually a very small percentage of the possible mental illnesses people could have. In fact, I can list all the possible diagnoses that could be called "crazy" under this criterion:
1. Schizophrenia, except for exclusively catatonic schizophrenia
2. Bipolar disorder, Type I only, manic state only
3. Major Depressive Disorder, Severe With Psychotic Features
4. Schizoaffective Disorder
5. Brief Psychotic Disorder (like schizophrenia but too early to tell whether it's true schizophrenia)
6. Delusional Disorder (delusion without the other symptoms of schizophrenia)
7. Borderline Personality Disorder, during "transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or delusions" only

There we go. Only seven of 'em, and most psychological disorders are excluded. So is autism "crazy"? Probably not, by the strict sense of the word. But we still ought to remember that distancing ourselves from "crazy" people is only going to make it worse for the people who do have the psychosis and get hit hardest by the prejudice involved.


Oh jeez, oh jeez, oh jeez. I'm not talking about "proper definitions" here, I'm talking about what other people think when they think of the word "crazy", as in "crazy crazy" and not like "fun crazy" or "wacky crazy".


"Crazy" in the sense you mean it, is too vague and subjective to discuss. It would be differently defined by each individual using the term.



swbluto
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17 Oct 2011, 6:19 pm

Rocky wrote:
swbluto wrote:
Callista wrote:
There's different definitions of the word "Crazy" that they might be talking about.

A. "Any psychological disorder."
Boy, this is a big category. You've got everything from arachnophobia to bulimia nervosa to Alzheimer's. In this case, yeah, autism fits; but most people wouldn't call many of those things "crazy". For example, I don't think people would call you "crazy" for having ADHD, which is a psychological disorder. And I'm pretty sure they don't call people who have dementia as the result of a stroke "crazy", either.

B. "Any acquired non-developmental psychological disorder not due to physical injury or damage."
This category includes everything that you aren't born with and doesn't involve physical damage to the brain. So that leaves out the stroke patients, Alzheimer's, and ADHD, and it also leaves out autism. But it leaves in things like dysthymia (low-level, long-term depression), the phobias, and personality disorders like OCPD (a personality type which is very rigid, structured, and perfectionistic). Most people wouldn't call those things "crazy" either.

C. "Any acquired non-developmental psychological disorder not due to physical injury or damage, which involves psychosis."
And here we are. This is probably the one definition of "crazy" that everybody could agree on. And it's actually a very small percentage of the possible mental illnesses people could have. In fact, I can list all the possible diagnoses that could be called "crazy" under this criterion:
1. Schizophrenia, except for exclusively catatonic schizophrenia
2. Bipolar disorder, Type I only, manic state only
3. Major Depressive Disorder, Severe With Psychotic Features
4. Schizoaffective Disorder
5. Brief Psychotic Disorder (like schizophrenia but too early to tell whether it's true schizophrenia)
6. Delusional Disorder (delusion without the other symptoms of schizophrenia)
7. Borderline Personality Disorder, during "transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or delusions" only

There we go. Only seven of 'em, and most psychological disorders are excluded. So is autism "crazy"? Probably not, by the strict sense of the word. But we still ought to remember that distancing ourselves from "crazy" people is only going to make it worse for the people who do have the psychosis and get hit hardest by the prejudice involved.


Oh jeez, oh jeez, oh jeez. I'm not talking about "proper definitions" here, I'm talking about what other people think when they think of the word "crazy", as in "crazy crazy" and not like "fun crazy" or "wacky crazy".


"Crazy" in the sense you mean it, is too vague and subjective to discuss. It would be differently defined by each individual using the term.


*points to my most recent post*



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17 Oct 2011, 6:49 pm

I wouldn't say crazy, just.... different?



swbluto
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26 Oct 2011, 10:32 pm

Thanks to all who responded! I'm eager to hear more insights or opinions! :D



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27 Oct 2011, 9:26 pm

swbluto wrote:
Thanks to all who responded! I'm eager to hear more insights or opinions! :D


What ARE you up to now? Bumping all the threads that interest you up in the index, just to be doing it? Or trying to inflate your posts? I'm going down my incoming e-mail to check on the threads _I'm_ watching, clicking the links and then deleting the e-mail and closing the browser window, and I keep running into this same post of yours. With a couple thousand posts you surely don't need to inflate. Do you? But this is getting boring.

(I like your tiger!)


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27 Oct 2011, 11:09 pm

Sibyl wrote:
swbluto wrote:
Thanks to all who responded! I'm eager to hear more insights or opinions! :D


What ARE you up to now? Bumping all the threads that interest you up in the index, just to be doing it? Or trying to inflate your posts? I'm going down my incoming e-mail to check on the threads _I'm_ watching, clicking the links and then deleting the e-mail and closing the browser window, and I keep running into this same post of yours. With a couple thousand posts you surely don't need to inflate. Do you? But this is getting boring.

(I like your tiger!)


I took the advice from my thread that asks if people feel the need to respond to everyone in their threads, and I started leaving a "Thanks to everyone!" message to my most recent threads so that nobody is left feeling unappreciated for their posts to my threads. ^_^

Sorry about the boredom Sibyl!



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27 Oct 2011, 11:23 pm

swbluto wrote:
Sibyl wrote:
swbluto wrote:
Thanks to all who responded! I'm eager to hear more insights or opinions! :D


What ARE you up to now? Bumping all the threads that interest you up in the index, just to be doing it? Or trying to inflate your posts? I'm going down my incoming e-mail to check on the threads _I'm_ watching, clicking the links and then deleting the e-mail and closing the browser window, and I keep running into this same post of yours. With a couple thousand posts you surely don't need to inflate. Do you? But this is getting boring.

(I like your tiger!)


I took the advice from my thread that asks if people feel the need to respond to everyone in their threads, and I started leaving a "Thanks to everyone!" message to my most recent threads so that nobody is left feeling unappreciated for their posts to my threads. ^_^

Sorry about the boredom Sibyl!


Making people feel appreciated is a Good Thing! It did get a little weird, though, as I ran into them, even for WP. :?


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27 Oct 2011, 11:27 pm

Sibyl wrote:
swbluto wrote:
Sibyl wrote:
swbluto wrote:
Thanks to all who responded! I'm eager to hear more insights or opinions! :D


What ARE you up to now? Bumping all the threads that interest you up in the index, just to be doing it? Or trying to inflate your posts? I'm going down my incoming e-mail to check on the threads _I'm_ watching, clicking the links and then deleting the e-mail and closing the browser window, and I keep running into this same post of yours. With a couple thousand posts you surely don't need to inflate. Do you? But this is getting boring.

(I like your tiger!)


I took the advice from my thread that asks if people feel the need to respond to everyone in their threads, and I started leaving a "Thanks to everyone!" message to my most recent threads so that nobody is left feeling unappreciated for their posts to my threads. ^_^

Sorry about the boredom Sibyl!


Making people feel appreciated is a Good Thing! It did get a little weird, though, as I ran into them, even for WP. :?


Weird?

You mean... they didn't fit with the thread's "conversation" at the time, sometimes?

Or, it just seemed weird seeing it over.. and over... and over...



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27 Oct 2011, 11:40 pm

swbluto wrote:

Or, it just seemed weird seeing it over.. and over... and over...


That -- and the same every time. Did you have it on your clipboard and just paste?


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swbluto
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28 Oct 2011, 12:00 am

Sibyl wrote:
swbluto wrote:

Or, it just seemed weird seeing it over.. and over... and over...


That -- and the same every time. Did you have it on your clipboard and just paste?


I'm a computer science major. How else would I do it? :lol:

Optimal efficiency is achieved when a set of tasks are executed all at once in a consistent, repetitive way. It's at the heart of the Industrial Revolution, yeah yeah!



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28 Oct 2011, 12:15 am

MrXxx wrote:
Interesting and kind of humorous way to look at it. Don't know if you meant it that way, but I got a chuckle out of it.

To answer the question directly though:

Uh, no. Autism and Crazy is unrelated. Though I have AS, and have no problem admitting I am also quite crazy. :P


Yeah, what he said