Subclinical autism as an overlooked part of the spectrum?

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I can't wait to read it (posting now mostly to help me remember to come back to this).

I am most definitely a shadow, and I do believe that is where my daughter will eventually end up. I only read the first couple of lines and what I can say is that once my daughter was diagnosed and I started to learn about autism, it helped me a great deal because even though I do not believe my degree of symptomology warrants a diagnosis, understanding autism has helped me understand things about myself that never made any sense in the past. It has given me a more solid framework from which to build.

What is hard is that, for all intents and purposes, I am "normal" as far as the world is concerned. Only I am not. I know I don't process things like other people do, and although I can compensate for most of my "quirks," it is not always easy and sometimes it is downright exhausting. I don't think most people understand the concept of "working" to be "normal." They just are normal.

If your 'BAP' traits are causing difficulty functioning, you should be diagnosed with autism or a related condition. BAP is supposed to mean people with autistic traits but no functioning problems.

And I really hate when people say a person who meets criteria for autism and used to have impaired functioning but is doing fine now isn't autistic. If it used to cause problems for them, then it can cause problems again someday.

If I didn't have "classic autism" before the age of 5, with no verbal speech until age 5.5, and many Aspergian traits afterwards, I would have considered myself in the "shadow" as well.

I was actually diagnosed with autism at around age 3, and "brain-injury/damage" soon afterwards. If you read the literature from the 1960s-1970s, I fit, well, the "minimal brain dysfunction" profile--as probably most present-day Aspergians would have during that time.

I function well enough to make a living on my own, and to maintain my finances (varies). I avoid situations where my autistic/Aspergian symptoms might reveal themselves.

This is why I don't feel presumptuous when I try to offer advice to people on how to function in the "greater" society. Basically, Temple Grandin does the same when she lectures.

I am an ambassador for the National Autistic Society and two weeks ago I was speaking in the Houses of Parliament about the experience of living in the "In-between" world. By "In-between" I am talking
about being too autistic for the Non autistic world and too adaptive for the mainstream autistic community.

I have copy and pasted the complete talk I offered for those who might be interested.

Wishing you all well.



I was diagnosed with high functioning autism in the summer of 2007 at the age of forty two. Two years later I had the good fortune to have an autobiographical account of my life published. The title of the book was called A Painful Gift. I mention this now because the words, pain and gift convey so well my experience of living with high functioning autism.

At the age of fifteen and after years of being told I was odd, peculiar or disturbed, I was eventually hospitalized for eighteen months with severe anxiety and depression. At the time little was known about high functioning autism, consequently my time in hospital was deeply traumatic.

I had received numerous diagnosis over the years, which included tourettes syndrome, obsessional compulsive disorder, dyslexia, depression & anxiety.

Whilst it is true I have these conditions, it was of enormous importance that these very conditions were seen in the context of autism itself, as then and only then could the appropriate support and therapies be drawn up and applied effectively.

Autism remained an enigma to myself and those in my care for two very simple reasons.

Firstly, the extent to which I was daily humiliated and taken advantage of as a child, became the extent to which I would unconsciously construct a facade to insulate me from the world that I felt constantly lost and overwhelmed in.
I became so convincing in acting normal that my autism remained hidden to myself and the world.

Secondly, GP's, psychiatrists, even specialists in the field of autism itself, still have enormous difficulty is seeing how truly diverse and wide the autistic spectrum really is. Amungst us there are philosophers as well as mathematicians. Artists as well as engineers. Dancers, musicians, poets & dreamers. We can love and we can cry. We might communicate in a way that's different from the average person, but that's a difference and not an inability.

The facts are kind and the denial of the facts can be very unkind indeed. I would not be alive today if I had not received the diagnosis of high functioning autism. I would have taken my life. The cloud of unknowing became so lonely.

Being diagnosed with high functioning autism did not belittle or diminish my humanity, on the contrary it gave me my humanity back.

The experience of diagnosis in this context has not so much been an end point, but a doorway into another existence free from confusion of unknowing and the false belief and shame of feeling wrong.

The philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said, "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a human experience. Today I can say that "I am a spiritual being having a human experience of which autism is an integral part." Knowing this is enables me to be free.

I'm glad you've been able to find your niche in life. I've partially found mine--but I still have a ways to go--and not much time to do it! I'm 54 years old!

Sometimes, I wonder if a "spiritual" component to my overall self would help in some way. I'm an atheist/agnostic skeptic when it comes to religion and spirituality--which is why I don't embrace the spiritual aspects of things. I don't judge others, though, if they choose to do so.

Indeed, there have been considerable accomplishment by people who are on the Spectrum, and who are speculated to be on the Spectrum retrospectively. We should really bring this out--and prove it--so people will not continue to see autism as something debilitating (i.e., the pre 1980's conception of autism).

I hope your autobiography gets a high readership.

There's a guy here named AdrianEsq (who posts sporadically) who has a similar outlook to you. I wouldn't be surprised if you derived benefit from "speaking" (or even actually speaking) with him. He's a little "over the top" at times--but his intentions are good.

Thank you K

In my quaker community there is a growing number of atheists in our ranks. We define spiritual in a most dynamic way.

Peace to you from London

If it weren't for Quakers, ironically, we would probably not be able to imagine the concept of the separation of Church and State.

How are you at picking up "romantic cues" from ladies?

Well below the average I can assure you of that

Have you read about the romance between Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin? No cues needed! They were philosophically into each other.

Mary Wollstonecraft was the mother of Mary Shelley, who wrote "Frankenstein."

Who knows? Maybe those two were within the BAP Spectrum.

in the old days these individuals were usually diagnosed with non verbal learning disabilities,like

samantic pragmatic disorder or hyperlexia or were given a pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified

Autism, pre-1980, was a combination of the DSM-4s "autistic disorder" and "childhood disintegrative disorder" for the most part. If somebody fit the Asperger/HFA profile, they could be diagnosed with quite a few things, most of which are obscure in 2015. I was diagnosed with both autism (poor prognosis) and "brain injury/damage," which became "minimal brain dysfunction" late in the 1960s (better prognosis). I went to a nursery school sponsored by the "New York Association for Brain-injured Children." I went to a school for kids with various types of "emotional disturbance" until 6th grade.

I would say most HFA/Asperger's people would have been diagnosed with what I was diagnosed with. Most would not have been diagnosed with autism.