Army

I would think long and hard about whether the army would suit a person with an ASD.

Autistic people frequently suffer bullying because we stand out from the crowd. The army thrives on conformity and bullying is an endemic problem there. We are not well equipped to make a cheeky retort to nip this sort of thing in the bud.

The authoritarian regime may offer a seemingly predictable and regimented life but actually the regimentation is all about learning to do as you are told when you are in a very demanding and rapidly changing situation. A battlefield is not a predictable and routine situation.

I read a thread on  an american site where some prospective recruits were talking about hiding their autism from a system that was trying to stop autistic people joining. It struck me that the US Army had probably worked out that ASD people don't make great soldiers and that it made no sense to allow or encourage people like that to join up.

In the ARRSE thread quoted by IntenseWorld there seemed to be a question about whether the officer concerned was actually on the spectrum. He didn't strike me as a typical sufferer.

I have serious concerns about the DSM-5 criteria myself: how can someone be diagnosed in the intellectual élite in one breath and then in the intellectually-challenged the next? Attwood, for example, doesn't even accept evidence for high functionality. Further questions show no research has been done into the mindset, and with MRI and EEG data on myself, my mind runs with up to 9 times the resouce available to a neurotypical, allowing me to handle far more, complex and contradictory data. He simply can't follow me (as the Army observed!). I risk overload, being protected by my neuroceptive subconscious in an Innate Alarm System freeze. I far prefer the Markrams' Intense World Syndrome.

Rahere said:

I have serious concerns about the DSM-5 criteria myself: how can someone be diagnosed in the intellectual élite in one breath and then in the intellectually-challenged the next?

There is of course ASD Level 1 describing 'without accompanying intellectual or language impairment', and also the thing with "Socially Inept Genius Pattern" as some refer to it.

Rahere said:

I have serious concerns about the DSM-5 criteria myself: how can someone be diagnosed in the intellectual élite in one breath and then in the intellectually-challenged the next?

There is of course ASD Level 1 describing 'without accompanying intellectual or language impairment', and also the thing with "Socially Inept Genius Pattern" as some refer to it.

Sure I have been looking at RK Blythe on your recommendation previously  

It is where you are - Organisation isn't necessary. Learn to use choans and haiku for yourself, within prayer-meditation. DT Suziki's and RK Blythe's are starters before moving onto the classics. All we're dealing with is an Areopagite situation, "To the unknown God". "In my Father's house there are many mansions: the distinction is that direct repentant confession clear the channels. Matt 6.

yes i have been reading myself about the connection between the Mystic Christian meditation and the Zen Meditation (Just sitting). This happened by accident when I read a book about Meditation and didnt notice it was Mystic Christian and not Zen

I also know there are move by German and Japanese Buddhists and Christians to create a new future "Zen" which is a cross between Christianity and Zen. Not sure where there that is right now.  

We now know from trauma treatment that meditation is cognitively-suppressed mentation, based in the limbic brain. It is not therefore to be defined by some sect, whether Buddhist, Christian, mindfulness, you name it. However, the portal these offer into it does colour the environment, principally as regards numinous presence or otherwise. Christianity in Japan has a very distinct flavour, as a result of the zen philosophy, as both are founded in Lao Tzu's aphorism, Blessed are the meek, expressed 200 years before Christ. Effectively, the full Matthew 6 confessional is a very effective way to clear the channels, the most effective I know. Usui's circle is said to have practiced it, although there are counter-claims that this claim was for marketability in the West: all I know is that it works.

Zen meditation is less mindful, less busy than mantric gechniques, more open to calm reflection, and shares much with Christian methods of waiting on the divine. It has its own version of transcendence, Satori, although nothing really matches full communion.

what is "Zen Christian" meditation ?

I've been looking at the neurodiversity angle and discovered High Sensitivity, which wasn't talked about. One of my traits in the diagnosis is Hyperperception, taking High Sensitivity to an extreme. After a lot more research, I don't get past 3 symptomatic traits in the diagnosis, namely communications issues, obsession, and meltdown. I'll split the latter in two, both Innate Alarm System responses, trauma and Pavlov's Transmarginal Inhibition, with a possible third, HS. Others may exist, I'm talking subjectively.

Communication is a two-way process. One talks, the other understands. Except the scale of my ND mind models are far greater than an NT can follow. An EEG showed I'm using between 30%(at rest) and near 100% of my brain. After allowing for experiential short-term memory, an NT uses 5%. He doesn't have a hope if I say it all. If I condense it, he might, but if anything interests him enough to want to go into detail, his eyes soon glaze over. And without it, he lacks the background to follow. I liken it to two identical PCs, one with an up to date Operating System which uses all its memory, the other with an out of date one which can only use 5%. Which is disordered?

Of course, building new models on that scale can take a lot of work, because the work's new research and the data interpretation crucial. To an NT, that can seem obsessive. We're building Rome, and the NT, experienced in instant gratification, can't understand that we search far and deep to find the key gem.

The entire history of the diagnosis is founded on various NTs wondering why we're not like them. It's time to flip the coin: why aren't they like us? We're not over-excitable, they're just slow. I don't have communication issues, they have understanding issues. I'm not obsessive, but careful, precise, checking and corroborating. They'd melt down too if they'd suffered what most of us have, or used their brains properly. 

As a result, in my search for wider traits, I see a starter in Elaine Aron's High Sensitivity thesis, I go way further as a seer medium, which is what hyperperception codes to. One employed in the European State Department. Do you recall Donald Trump on codebreaking last November? It's hard to get the jump on me. I've explained the rest. If by Socially Inept you mean I should aspire to the dumb tribal norms around, forget it. They cast me out aged 9, so I'm not interested in following the herd, they go where I point. It's the same message right the way through, normalisation becoming stultification as one path, innovation becoming progress the other. I have a decent share of the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize to show for it, my personal initiatives having led the way in the reunification of Europe and resolving Clausewitz maxim: given that wars always end in peace, why start? The Continuation of Policy by better means.

The research into high performance is starting. Craig Wright, whose The Maze and the Warrior gave a third of my core thesis in the Renaissance study, started Yale's Genius School last year, but his approach is flawed: a genius is well on his way by then. Now we see High Sensitivity. What I'm looking for is a more balanced assessment now. Both brain hemispheres, IQ and EQ. My hyperperception's empathic in part, so it balances my intellect.

And above all else, what do others report? I can break my Reiki Mastery down into meridian awareness, diplomatic long-distance empathy, and zen christian meditation, as a portal on the numinous. Can we do the same with telekinesis? What other gifts? Has anyone cracked Heisenberg?