An amazing day!

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I still say it is FireBird's choice, whether to speak publicly, whether to speak as an artist, as someone with mental illness, as someone with autism, or as any combination of these things.

Others are entitled to speak also, and I doubt "the public at large" will be any more misled about ASDs than they choose to be. From my point of view it's an area "the public at large" choose to be simplistic and reductionist about (as a general tendency), none of which should be the controlling or focal point of FireBird's life.

It's really an individual choice whether or not we choose to pursue public speaking opportunities as people with an ASD, and that choice cannot fairly and morally be restricted just because someone's particular comorbid/s are less than appealing to some other person with an ASD.



FireBird, there will always be different opinions and what one person praises you for, some other person will have a problem with. It's implausible to expect you can or will please all people at any one time. Probably in everything you do, someone somewhere will have opposition to that. It's simply the way things are, and the best thing to do is be sure and clear that you've given consideration to opposing views, and not take the opposition to heart if you personally believe what you are doing is right.

who are you responding to? if it's me I might have an answer. If not I apologize. The big deal is this. I have not seen FireBird speak, I have seen her writing and It is a little worry-some. I worked with paranoid schizophrenics for 5 years, most of them didn't let me know about their delusions. They kept them effectively "separate" which is fine for speaking. But when they did allow me to know about their thoughts, either in their language or in letters, I would become worried and ultimately my team would take action in a therapeutic direction. Just covering is fine for speaking but in life it's not fine. This message board is a good way of seeing whats going on in life. if you don't quote the person that you're responding to, I don't know who the message is for. So I just wrote back. I hope that you don't think that I'm trying to insult you or your daughter.

What's wrong with my writing? Is it because I have it in one giant paragraph (making it harder to read)? If so, I can start making paragraphs.

No, you have long paragraphs, but I think that the best thing to do is re-read them when you finish them to make sure they have a good flow. If they do, then your set. There really isn't anything wrong with your writing except it's slightly disorganized. I get that way too. Especially when I write especially long papers for class. It doesn't hurt to break up into paragraphs also, if it helps with organization.

I think people who have co-morbid psychiatric conditions should be upfront about that if they wish to take on roles as public speakers. It doesn't help autistics, there's already enough public confusion about autism.

Are there opportunities for you to speak at schizoaffective bipolar type conferences? I don't have a problem with you doing that at all.

Congratulations on your accomplishments FireBird. :O

Yes, I want to speak at mental health conferences as well to talk about my schizoaffective disorder and stop the stigma surrounding that particular disorder. I want to inspire those people as well. But I want to do both autism conferences and mental health conferences. One disorder has nothing to do with another. I know schizophrenia has a higher rate among autistic individuals, I've seen people on this site with schizophrenia and autism and they have talked about their "delusions" and problems as well.

Thank you.

There's no 'higher rate' of schizophrenia or delusions among autistic people, that is just rubbish.

I prefer text broken into paragraphs, it's much easier for me to read, but it's really up to you whether or not you type one big block or cater to the reading difficulties of other forum users.


Which all strikes me as very hypocritical. Only those with "pure" ASDs can speak publicly; we would not want any lack of clarity or potential for misinformation arising because of public confusion of comorbids (and never mind how very common it is for people with AS to have comorbids - or is it to do with the stigma you personally attach to particular comorbids, so that dysgraphia might be find but bi-polar mood disorder and schizoaffective disorders must be hidden away like a skeleton in a closet?)

Meanwhile, anyone with any psychiatric condition can speak publicly about it, whatever other comorbid condition they might have, but will necessarily have to keep quiet about that comorbid disorder if it is an ASD (so as not to "contaminate" public perceptions about ASDs), in order not to upset or concern you. And never mind if this misleads the public about psychiatric illnesses of one kind or another, because unlike ASDs the public perception about psychiatric illness does not concern you personally.

I find that grossly hypocritical. I can understand concern that ASDs might be misinterpreted/misrepresented by the public, but I think your concern that ASDs might be conflated with symptoms of other psychiatric illness, while not seeming to give a toss about how psychiatric illnesses are perceived, is prejudicial, hypocritical, self-serving and betrays a stigmatizing and discriminatory attitude towards those with psychiatric illness. After all you are very concerned psychiatric illness symptoms not be confused with AS, but are utterly unconcerned if ASD symptoms "contaminate" public perceptions about one or more psychiatric illnesses.

Sometimes, I think it is all YOU have in life. Even as simple and boring as my life is, and even as addicted to this board as I am, I don't post with the idea to detract from peoples success, etc.... I simply think Postperson is right about the fact that things can get confused, etc... It ISN'T that people want to hurt, or discourage firebird, but that they would rather see others help the community.

There are two issues:

1. Reading one large contiguous paragraph is akin to trying to eat a pizza which isn't cut into slices--unwieldy, even if the entire paragraph concerns a single subject (like a pizza with the same topping all over it). It is still desirable in that case to make an occasional break, perhaps where the subtopic changes a bit (like slicing a pizza between the bits of pepperoni), for the following reason;

2. "Whitespace" serves an important function, much like pauses in speaking, in that it helps the reader to understand where such pauses (perhaps for thought) should occur, and is more visually pleasing--otherwise the text appears "congested" and may be disregarded outright.

Some authors (Faulkner, et al.) use long paragraphs for literary effect (e.g., "stream of consciousness"), but for non-fiction prose, gaps are vital to maintain audience attention.

EDIT: Fixed a redundancy.

Firebird is an amazing person. Despite all her problems she is putting herself out there to help others. She never tries to hide the fact that she is also schizophrenic. She has been more than most people have. She has dealt with bullies all her life and she was picked on in school plus she has also survived being raped.

Firebird, like I mentioned didn't go through the normal progression of schizophrenia. She first started with conversion disorder where she was having pseudo-seizures. It was thought at that time that it was because of the bullying and the rape. From there it went onto multiple personality disorder where she had 10 different personalities. After that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder and finally schizophrenia. This is one reason why her doctors and caseworker aren't really sure of the schizophrenia label even though she has many of the symptoms of it.

Firebird is very vocal and she has learned to talk about whatever she is feeling or whatever bothers her. She doesn't fit the typical mold for schizophrenia, especially how it all started. She may talk about the bizarre thoughts that she has but if you met her you would never know that she was having these problems.

I feel sorry for those of you who feel like you must put others down to feel good yourself. Firebird suffered for years with depression but even during those times she never would put others down when they were doing good. I also want to thank those of you who have helped and supported her. This makes her feel that there are people out there who do care and are there to support her and others like her on this board.

I bet a LOT of people make more than strapples. At least 2 people here said they made more than I do. It just came up. NONE of us were bragging, etc.... Do I envy that? Kind of. Do I wish them any ill will? NOPE! HECK, I respect both of them. One is a man that has a great memory and spatial ability, and built an engineering business. The other is a woman that is obviously very smart and ALSO built a business, though I forget what THAT business did. They both PERSONALLY make more than twice what I do.

Just because you make more than strapple does doesn't mean you should assume that he wishes you ill will because of it.

And I didn't see postperson say anything really against YOU. For all I know, strapples didn't either.

Well you've already implied that you do keep it secret, or 'separate' was the word. When i asked if you were public about comorbid schiz/bipolar issues when speaking about autism in public, you gave the impression that you keep those things secret from an autistic audience at conferences.





yes, clearly Firebird has multiple mental and neurological issues. I wonder does she seek support for these things at bipolar/borderline/schiz support sites too. I think dual or multiple dx people should also seek out sites that offer support to their other dx'es.

Last edited by Postperson on 21 Feb 2009, 10:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Postperson wrote: There's no 'higher rate' of schizophrenia or delusions among autistic people, that is just rubbish.

Then why on all the boards that I post on a lot of them have autism/Asperger's and either bipolar, schizophrenia, or schizoaffective disorder? And at the parent's meeting that I spoke at, a lot of their kids that have an ASD also have one of these disorders? There must be a higher rate. I know according to Time or Newsweek (I think it was last year or the year before it) they said 80% of people with autism have anxiety or depression. Also on this very board there was a thread that was started about delusions and the majority of them that responded said they either had delusions or currently have delusions. That thread was a couple of years ago.