How did you get your autism?

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Only because of a better understanding of AS/HFA. The number, in reality, has remained fairly consistent throughout history.

I selected born with it, because out all of the other options that were left. " Being born wit it " was the only reasonable explanation, although what is odd to me, is the fact that I'm the only one in my family to be diganosed with AS. Which rules out the possiblity of genetics being a key factor, and to my knowledge I didn't have any problems at birth. I highly doubt that enviroment could be a factor in having Autism/ Asperger's, but it could affect some of the symptoms in an individual.

I was definitely born with it. Genetically I do believe that it runs in the family, but it's possible that the other factors you've talked about could influence a worse outcome in the genetic predisposition. For example a vaccine simply might antagonize the factors causing genetic predisposition. Having a traumatic birth and brain injury can cause similar symptoms, living with those symptoms could create an environment for ASD behavioral temperaments to develop. I think that the Autism Genes causes predisposition to ear infections, and ear infections themselves can cause vestibular disorders producing even more symptom clusters, same with the seizures. Now I've had a traumatic birth, I've suffered head injury, I may have had frontal lobe seizures as a kid, I had many ear infections, and me and my parents have been vaccinated. There is no way to determine a clear cause so until one is proven we must have an open and scientific mind to all the factors. A lot of these causes your proposing also appear in mental illness. Now I believe that Autism and mental illness go hand and hand. My grandpa has Bipolar and we suspect AS too. I have AS, a schizotypal personality disorder, and more than likely Bipolar depressive type. Another thing to consider is that our brains might be wired differently.

Last edited by Angel_ryan on 03 Jul 2010, 1:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

@ Angel_ryan: preciesly what I'd in mind at the time when I was diagnosed with Asperger's.

born at 26weeks

I was born with it

My mother swears I was a fairy changeling in my crib, or that they got Eugenie Victoria Mendenhall (the baby that was born in the same hosp room at the same time as me) when they left the hospital.

However, I looked the spit and image of my mother, so that bummed her out quite a bit.

From Dad.

He didn't want us kids fighting over it after he died, so I got it all when I was born--yay!

I found it in a London news paper, last Wednesday.

Well, since I have experienced none of those things, I do have other family members who have been diagnosed with it (all in the same branch of the family), and since I have no doubt my Paternal Grandmother had it and she went through the school system decades before anybody was being vaccinated (before in fact, there was much of an organized school system in these parts), I feel pretty confident genetics is the most likely suspect.

'Our brains being wired differently' is just a roundabout way of saying 'its genetics' because your brain could only be 'wired' that way if it were formed that way in utero according to your DNA template. Which is just what I think happens in almost all cases. If there are other causes, like TBI, I think those are far more unusual than simply being born with it. It seems like a TBI would have to occur in a very specific and coincidental way to cause Autism, rather than say death or amnesia or loss of intellectual cognitive abilities.

I mean, an accidental Brain Injury might just as well leave you a vegetable - what are the odds it would just cause Autism and stop there?

Last edited by Willard on 02 Jul 2010, 4:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It was inherited of course. My dad has aspergers too. As for the whole vaccines myth, I dont buy it to the least bit. Theres not scientific evidence to prove that vaccines cause autism

I caught it after my computer got infected by a virus after I joined WP for the first time. Somehow that virus transmogrified into an organic form that now dwells is more very soul. Still I am not in the least bit bitter.

I was born in Neustadt and if someone is born in NEUstadt, is NEUro... oooh well, I'm autistic. So I don't know


Or maybe they gave me not enough sweets in my childhood?



I really don't know! It seems I was just born with it.

I don't know, because I show so many of the factors that have at one time or another been theorized. Technically, I'm an Aspie, if that matters.

Let's see... Dad's on the spectrum, check. I was late, check. Stressful birth, check.

The earliest evidence for my being atypical is neither worrisome nor conclusive, but as a baby, I wouldn't cry, and I gave myself a mohawk by pulling out my hair.

Further evidence occurs in early childhood, when I had difficulty perceiving that someone had greeted me, and was very shy around non-family. I usually preferred solitary play, although it was often pretend play. I had my first special interest then, too. It was dinosaurs. I wonder what percentage of children, both on and off the spectrum, are obsessed with dinosaurs when they're five. It's probably very high. That may be the last time I was ever typical.

Yes, I was vaccinated, and yes, they contained mercury, and yes, my mother blames the vaccines.

So we see that I was probably always like this, although we can't know for sure.

However, I also demonstrated definite tendencies toward extraversion. Not to a huge degree, but I valued my friends and liked playing with other kids. I sought out such experiences.

However, I had to change schools a couple of times. No group of children ever accepted me after third grade. I was homeschooled following that, and essentially never left the house. I had very little social contact.

Following this period, we find that I am much more introverted and have fallen further behind my peers in social skills, although I understand relationships better than before. I credit some of my most significant improvements to videogames.

So there you have it. Theoretically, it could be due to any of these factors. Dad remains convinced that I got it by reading about it. Mom remains convinced that that's how I developed stims. (In a triumph of common sense, she blames my touching everything on watching Monk, which I didn't start doing until after I started touching everything. It is true that I never rocked until after I'd read about it, but rocking is a vestibular stim, and I had a different vestibular stim-- spinning-- before, which has been entirely extinguished.)

"It's not what I took from you it's not what I stole we were born like this"

I think they kept me in the oven too long. ;]

Though to be serious, I was a breech-- born two weeks late. And I got a LOT of ear infections as a kid. And I have family members who show many traits, though none have been diagnosed. And I have had vaccines regularly through out my life.

SPIN THE AUTISM WHEEL! :D