TiffWS,
I would have to go with Asperger on this, autism being one end of a spectrum that runs through Scientists, Engineers, Universities, where it has a framework to live in.
I see it as all in how you grow up, if the Little Professor is welcomed and educated, then the Professions, if everything you do is wrong, an alienation which never syncs with the world.
Very different creative patterns, the logical mind of autism, dull, boring, does not get jokes, yet can find the pattern that was never before noticed. When it comes to anything emotional, meltdowns and loss of function.
Schizophrenia/bipolar, seem all about the emotions, and not a logical group at all. Where an autistic can play music with a precise pattern, Classical, schizophrenia can reach the emotional. Autistic singers are not famous, or tolerated, but Billie Holiday, Edith Piaf, can even make my reserved self feel emotion, only second hand, but sweeter for the rarerness of it.
Where Stephan Wilshire can draw a city seen once like a photograph, it has that much emotion.
Art is that which causes an emotional response in the viewer, Van Gogh had it.
Several painters have told me that without a manic phase, they were worthless.
As proof of a misspent youth, an alienated loner, in New York, I met a lot of writers, musicians, painters, designers.
Looking back I would say from both groups, technical and emotional, in the same fields.
One writer pulls it all out of their head, and it is powerful, another researches endless facts, joins them, and writes an informative story.
Some musicians play it exactly right, others never the same twice, but all good. Painters we blamed on the solvents, but they too run technical or emotional.
Bad writers, painters, musicians, lack both sides. They will never become.
In the current speak, a Neurotypical Hobby.
NTs have a place, but not in the arts. Thousands go to Nashville, hundreds record, tens become good enough to earn a living, a very few become famous talents.
Some of this group of mine did vacation in mental institutions, more married women from that school. Most were just normal weird. Before the internet, going to New York, Nashville, was how to find your people.
Having lived the life, and now learned something about why, I discovered Autism at 59, it fits.
The breakdowns came from two causes, autistics facing emotional demands, and not being able to cope, and the schizophrenic/bipolar not finding people who played at their emotional level.
Strangely enough, the two groups got along well. They often worked creative projects together. I worked photography. I had it down, chemicals, time, tricks, and could make the best prints around, show quality. I did it for others because I am not a good photographer. I can run a camera, but nothing I shot would ever win a prize. The people who did shoot great art, should stay out of the darkroom, emotion does not work there, just tech.
From what I have learned here, I am not just lightly autistic. high IQ, HFA rather than AS. Still I lived, worked, knew some strange people, and it all meshed in New York. Very different in my home town.
Where I came from I did not fit in, a total rejection, in New York, same self, some high paying jobs and my skills were in demand. The same for a social life, I knew people who became famous, the talent pool gathered, we had a world. I got a pass through publishing, art, music, and there I met a wider world who were very much like our group, same traits, but masked a bit better. We were the raw talent side, they marketed it, and they could tell good from bad.
They had the Nashville deal, thousands showed up, with advanced degrees from the best schools, very few of them survived in the business. Talents were spotted quickly. It stands out.
Psychology aside, some do have peaks in the technical, or in the emotional, and maybe one in ten fits the Psychology model, but they are all the same when it comes to producing good stuff.
Broader Autism Phenotype has ten Geeks per Aspie, and they produce. A Harvard Degree in Computers, put him in sales.
You have to look at the whole group. Sure, some were raised in a cellar and poked with pointed sticks, for being different, others were the same, but grew up with parents and family that never noticed.
The connection between suffering and art, it becomes the only thing that ever worked for some, and they dive in. Others came from stable families, and they also produced good work.
The basic mental condition was the same, just 10% of our group has had a rough childhood. Most overcome it as adults. Still autistic, but I know how to avoid the problems now.
I have also met people that I thought needed to be locked up, the, A danger to themselves and others. There is no doubt, there is a deep end, but most is at the shallow end, but we could go either way.
You study, I lived there. I see it like Asperger, as it grades out through the population.
I can spot my own, and had the same happen to me when I ran into a group from the Group Home, Auties, but they all saw me as one of them. I get to wander without a caretaker, some can pass better than I.
Counting the full range of Autism and Schizophrenia, I would give each 10% of the general population, and in that group, lies most of the highest intelligence, talent, and productive ability.
Where it is seen as Clinical, I see a life trashed by family, upbringing, education, and all that is left is the creative. The same group with a less stressful life, they would be at the University, and being praised for their insights.
I do not buy Genetics, it exists, but we know nothing, other than, it is all Genetic. The strong focus through the logical and technical, or the world of feeling and emotions, are very different, but both are needed for a really good party. Where we were very close to the Clinical door, a lot more wanted to come to the party.
A painter's show with a few writer and musician friends would not be much, but others came, brought wine, and they fit in. They were drawn to their people. It did not stop there, for the work sold farther out, to people who could feel the emotion.
It did cross fields, those who were very good at something, also took an interest in art. They could speak our language, they belonged.
A while back I met a Doctor, he was OK, he wanted to learn how to rebuild Jeep transmissions and axels, and mostly wanted to hang out with the best mechanics, who are all autistic detail people. This is not a repair shop, we build machines. I think a lot of Doctors are autistic, from better families.
If we ever get really good tests to spot this, I think it will be found that the world would not run very well without these traits, and as I am sure you have learned, a few emotional setbacks, and a lot of the top performers can wind up going Clinical.
Dr. Amy Bishop, did not get tenure, so she shot the Dept Chair, killed three and wounded three at a meeting. Now it comes out she also killed her brother, was involved in a mailed pipe bomb, but her Doctorate was from Harvard.
In other cases autistic researchers have just walked away from a good job, their home, and just kept walking. They might be running a gas station on the night shift now.
The pattern continues all the way out.
Before running into Wrong Planet, I would have denied being at all autistic.
Have you taken the RDOS Aspie Quiz? Do you dare? I think it is on General Discussion.
"Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for the."
02 Mar 2010, 5:51 am
