Identity within autism

I was doing some searching on autistic language and I happened upon this:

https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/52787

The Clinical Gestalts of Autism: Over 40 years of Clinical Experience with Autism

This point in particular caught my attention:

'Identity diffusion is central to autism, and this will include their sexual and other identities. This is probably due to the neural connectivity problems in the brain [9]. Contradictory identities can exist side by side in their mind. They can switch to another and opposite identity very rapidly. This can be confused with so-called multiple personalities. This identity diffusion can cause stress in making decisions and in employment, and despite intelligence and good education, they may withdraw and cease to seek employment. They can confuse people with these contradictory identities. They do not have a clear sense of themselves and people find it difficult to understand them. This makes it very difficult for them to have a clear sense of other people. This increases interpersonal stress. They are often mistaken for the opposite sex and come across as being androgynous. Males can appear to have a soft female facies and females with a somewhat harder male facies. They may dress more like the opposite sex, which always causes confusion and shows signs of gender dysphoria. A small number will have transgender problems. Sometimes they feel unreal and de-personalised as living in a film and having an “as if” personality. Older adolescents with autism or Asperger’s syndrome often appear to be “asexual”. This can be very deceptive as the very same people can get involved in perverse, dangerous sexual activities'.

Parents
  • Sometimes they feel unreal and de-personalised as living in a film and having an “as if” personality.

    I feel that the abstract you've found is quite wishy-washy, and I would have loved to see the statements backed by representative evidence. Too many statements use the word 'can', and it's almost like listening to some advertisement where a praised product 'can' do something. 

    However this sentence struck home with me. I often find myself 'directing' myself in my life, like there was someone inside my brain commenting what I was doing, giving stage directions. As I  was observing myself. At times it is very entertaining, and I think that is what my brain is doing - keeping itself company. But I do think it is odd, and I am sure not everyone has an unsolicited 'imaginary friend' living inside their brainbox.

  • I had an imaginary friend pre-school (she was an adult, as I wasn't keen on other kids!)

    I think that many of us are creative thinkers though, with strong imagination. Unfortunately we can sometimes imagine that stressful things might happen, so although it can fuel creativity it can also fuel worry Disappointed

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  • I had an imaginary friend pre-school (she was an adult, as I wasn't keen on other kids!)

    I think that many of us are creative thinkers though, with strong imagination. Unfortunately we can sometimes imagine that stressful things might happen, so although it can fuel creativity it can also fuel worry Disappointed

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