Can AS "lay dormant"?

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I'm 25. I spent, essentially, from the ages of 12 to 19 behind bars of various shapes, sizes and colors. Combine that with the fact that I was sexually molested from (as far as I know and was told) the time I was born until I was 5 and I'm already not doing too hot in the healthy development realm. Also, I am aware of how un-empathic one would/could become with that little nurturing. It would also explain why I'm socially awkward.

But my one-sided verbal verbose verbosity, my continued failure to be able to understand how emotions are allowed to rule humans over logic (and fail to understand emotions AT ALL, except from a cause and effect standpoint) among a slew of other AS-related symptoms have all, more or less been around for my whole life.

Problem is, in April of 2008, I was involved in an auto accident that gave me brain damage, stole my voice (but I eventually did a kick-door and got it back), severely f****d up my balance (so I am now even MORE clumsy) and I can't remember my life before the accident except for snippits and scenes; I still have problems remembering much longer than a year ago.

So, is it possible that I indeed have AS, but, somehowsomeway, it wasn't 'activated' until, for some reason, I have my wreck? I know that AS and other ASDs are, at best guess, genetic. I guess I'm trying to figure out if it's possible to see if I can determine if the symptoms that I do exhibit were pre or post existent to my wreck. I'm a poor punk rocker and, if there needs to be tests and evaluations, they better be right and a thousand percent conclusive 'cause I sure as s**t can't afford them twice.

Any help or experience is greatly appreciated in advance.

No, it can't freaking lay dormant. It isn't a disease.

...Thus the quotation marks, I assume.

AS can, in a way, be "dormant", but it's not the same as what happens with a physical illness (which I assume you know already). If you are in a very good environment, under little stress, it may be impossible to tell you have AS, since you have no issues related to it. Now, you'll still have the same cognitive configuration, still be autistic; but you probably won't be diagnosed because in that environment you don't have any reason to look for diagnosis.

That's why many kids with AS aren't diagnosed until the first grade and the increased social demands--or even, in some cases (particularly gifted kids or parents in particularly bad denial), until high school.

You had a TBI during your car accident.

This bit:

...tells me you probably had AS your whole life. But you discuss being abused as a child and spending time "behind bars", and that makes me wonder whether you might have been medically neglected, as well, or had your AS traits put down to some other problem.

When you had your car accident, most likely you ended up with long-term issues related to the TBI. That probably made you less efficient at coping, in general, and made the AS more apparent. It's similar to the way that autistics with any sort of chronic health problem find it harder to cope while they're sick (though in this case it's injury not illness, of course).

Now--disclaimer. I'm not a doctor; and I only study neurology as a hobby. A professional doctor may easily come to the conclusion that it's impossible to tease apart the effects of the TBI and the life-long autistic traits; so it may be impossible to get a firm diagnosis. But that doesn't particularly matter because doctors are rather used to dealing with unique or complicated cases, especially when it comes to the brain; so if you and your doctor stick to the specific traits you need help with, you'll probably be able to work out beneficial strategies anyway.

Your brain is different because of the accident. Maybe you had some traits of AS that you never noticed before but it wouldn't just come out of nowhere.

But brain injuries can cause a series of problems.

You might've had some compensating tricks or other 'workarounds' that you've lost, and so that might make you look more autistic than before.

Someone wrote:
http://www.autistics.org/library/more-a ... raindamage

Dang! I can't believe I forgot to post that link! Yes, read it, good article...

Sorry to hear about that. You seem to have had a rough life. Being sexually abused is a bad thing, but it doesn't cause AS.

Anyhow, AS, as others have said, doesn't lay dormant, people have it from birth. However, this doesn't mean that it always gets detected at birth. I am 47 now and didn't know i had AS until about 5 years ago. I always knew I was different, but I didn't know it had a name. I'm still the same guy I was before it had a name, its just that now I have the knowledge base to fight it.

But in your case, if you were once normal (NeuroTypical), then you don't have AS.

AS is basically social retardation. In the true sense, that means that someone with AS has a harder time learning social skills as a child. In your case, you experienced a TBI which may have robbed you of your social skills that you already had. So if that is your case, its just a brain injury which can cause all sorts of personality changes. Those changes can be permanent or temporary. It depends on your particular case.

So if the question is "Do you have it?" then I would lean towards "no", but you may have similar symptoms because of your TBI.

Wow. It's just an innocent question.

I am interested in the underconnectivity theory of autism because it seems to account for all the weak central coherence, exaggerated sensory and cognitive profiles and general disparity of symptomatic manifestation on the spectrum. Naturally, I would interpret the effects of the TBI in an underconnectivity manner. By this, I mean that the under-connected brain of the autistic person is less adept at compensating for brain damage in areas of the brain because whilst there are undamaged areas which could compensate, the infrastructure is diminished

I shan't respond to initial assholery else to say, thanks for pointing out the point I made with those quotations.

While I am profoundly aware of the differences between a disease and a genetic 'condition,' maybe I should have asked if there are known cases of autistics (of any level or flavor) whom did not display signs at all until something (stress, abuse, brain injury, etc) "triggers" the autistic symptoms. Regardless of how it was phrased, my question was still answered.

I was pretty sure that TBI and AS have very similar 'symptoms' and I also learned that the average life expectancy of a TBI survivor is about 7-12 years; and the f****d up thing is that of those that fall into that survival time-period, the cause of death for 80+% is suicide. o_O YAY!

As for being NeuroTypical, I don't think I've ever been typical in any way or on any plane of reality. Not to say that I am so cool no one it like me or anything epically narcissistic as that; just that I've always been socially awkward, one-sided verbally verbose in my verbosity (not to mention my penchant for extemporaneous pontification ), clumsy, extremely 'schedule driven,' fairly un-empathetic and withdrawn. HOWEVER, these are also traits of many other things (ie, that ubiquitously generic diagnosis 'borderline personality disorder') and, while there are hundreds of thousands of people out there 'looking for a reason,' I am well aware that, if I am indeed in possession of AS, it is very low level and the symptoms are likely magnified by both the TBI and the fact that my family has a retarded-high susceptibility for clinical depression and other personality-related disorders.

I appreciate the links and info. I am at work right now, so I can't look into the articles (but, similar to reading The House of Leaves, I really WANT to screw off at work to read those articles), though there is an extreme probability that I will look into them whilst hanging out with a buddy after work.

Thanks again.

Wow, I am impressed that you are able to work, given all of the difficulties you are facing----Maybe you did possess
AS traits as a child, but it sounds like you were not in a very loving environment, so chances are, no one was paying attention if you did have strange behaviors. It sounds like maybe you do have AS, from the description you have given.

Hope everything gets better for you soon----

androjeans posted (in part): But my one-sided verbal verbose verbosity, my continued failure to beCan AS "lay dormant"? able to understand how emotions are allowed to rule humans over logic (and fail to understand emotions AT ALL, except from a cause and effect standpoint) among a slew of other AS-related symptoms have all, more or less been around for my whole life. Problem is, in April of 2008, I was involved in an auto accident that gave me brain damage, stole my voice (but I eventually did a kick-door and got it back), severely f**** up my balance (so I am now even MORE clumsy) and I can't remember my life before the accident except for snippits and scenes; I still have problems remembering much longer than a year ago. So, is it possible that I indeed have AS, but, somehowsomeway, it wasn't 'activated' until, for some reason, I have my wreck?...

----

androjeans - Sorry to hear about your childhood. From a Christian perspective, all one can do is to give that awful kind of unwanted experience to God. It seems to me that you are talking about two things: you before the auto accident and you after the auto accident. That makes it more challenging to sort out what happened/what is going on.

This is directed to the idea of concussions/whatever:

http://www.sportsconcussions.org/
http://www.sportsconcussions.org/concussion-basics.html

Brain injuries/subtle brain injuries are very real. There is no such a thing as a mild brain injury

What can be done is to slowly understand that a person has a brain injury/likely sustained a brain injury.

There may be no easy answers for everyone with brain injuries at all. It can literally take persons with a brain injury a number of years to slowly begin to understand what they are/what the consequences of an auto accident can be.

Some persons have said that once they accepted they did sustain a brain injury that they were able to slowly move forward a little, even a lot.

Good luck. - pgd

http://www.biausa.org/
http://www.headinjury.com/
http://www.givebackorlando.com/

[*thinks to himself: why can't ALL online communities be this helpful?*]

It isn't so much that the environment wasn't loving. My mother was dealing with a lot (including alcoholism) when the molestation thing was dropped on her. She responded in the best way anyone in that experience for the first time could: kicked my dad out immediately. Though, that is a very good point; some of the behaviors that ended up being attributed to sexual abuse might have actually been AS traits that just showed up at a proverbially inopportune time.

I think the reason that I'm here is to find out if I have enough (latent or otherwise) AS traits that would necessitate seeing a "specialist" or some other nonsense.

Another reason I'm apprehensive in regards to 'self-diagnosis' is because I can get along with other humans pretty damned well. So well, that I can float in a number of different circles and still be loved and thought of as awesome. The thing about this that isn't enough for me to truly disclude (yes that isn't a word, but, in its non-word-ness, it is grammatically correct) AS is because, while I can be a people person, I can't do it for a longer period than about 20 minutes or so. I start getting anxious, uncomfortable and hateful of people. While I can (and do) keep it in check in 'public,' it still seems like a learned 'workaround' spawned from AS traits. Another thing is my extreme propensity to live in my own head and do that whole "focus on minor details without understanding relevance to the whole of the subject"-thing that folks with AS tend to exhibit.

I don't know or profess to know. Well, know or profess to know whether or not I have AS. While it would explain A LOT, and I truly feel for people who are not only diagnosed but (if I have AS) are significantly worse off than I am, I don't want AS. It's not my life goal or anything. I would actually rather find out that I'm just too 'emo' for my own good.

Regardless, the next step is research and case studies. I have some resources and will most definitely use them (and, if more responses and resources are in order, I will most definitely look into those as well).

Again, thanks to all.

Ya snooze, ya lose!

(just kidding)

But yeah, that article never stops being useful.

Oh heck. I'm having a "duh" moment here.

The OP was a question as to whether AS can lay dormant. The answer is still no. But what I just remembered is that schizoid disorders DO lay dormant and tend to imitate AS to a certain degree.

With schizoid problems, a person can be totally normal until the early 20's and then suddenly become schizo. I don't have any specific data regarding TBI's triggering the onset of schizo symptoms, but I don't see that it would be impossible either. It could also be coincidental.

One thing for sure is that schizo disorders are far more treatable than AS.

So if the OP is reading this, have your doc check you out for the possibility of having a schizo disorder. That may be your problem.

I agree that AS can't lay dormant. But then again, the original poster does say he's had AS traits all his life. So, what he's really asking about, I think, is if it can get notably worse.