We're all on the Spectrum

The idea of the spectrum as a metaphor, a spectrum is a rainbiw or band of visible light sandwiched between darkness, Its a sliver of light in fact only perceptable to humans if we are talking about certain colours, but the rest is black - that is where alll the neurotypicals are

'No we are not', what?

No we are not

I guess we do get a lot of hatred, I guess that being diagnosed so late in life, I've sort of learned to ignore it and them, but then I'm quite self contained and self sufficient.

I think growing up was all about learning to defend myself, bth physically, mentally and spiritually, mostly though I just carry on doing what I want to do, I guess its one advantage of having been an only child, I learnt not to need other people to amuse myself, I'm often surprised at how many people need others for validation. Validations nice, its certainly an advantage, but I dont' need it anymore, I spend years feeling like my own ghost that I was haunting my life, but never really a part of it. Then I realised that most of it was feeling that I needed out side input and I really don't. I don't others to make me feel like a real human being.

I don't think I've ever had a role model, autistic or not, I've never felt the need for one or have never found somebody I admire enough to want to emulate. To me role models are an NT thing, a stick to beat others into competing to be "good enough", but good enough for who and why does it matter?

Would I want to be like Elon Musk, no, most definately not, the mans a menace! He's the only person I can think of who's been radicalised by his own social media platform! I suspect we don't see many successful ND people as they don't advertise themselves, they just do what they do and get on with life.

I think there can be a lot of hatred and negativity within groups and ND people are no different to NT's in this. There's always somebody playing the burning martyr, smouldering away in the middle fo a room, shouting 'look at me, none of you care', some people like hierarchies of suffering, thats not a game I want to play. But then why shoud we all get on, no one would expect any other random group of strangers to get on all the time, so why should we?

Hehe

"The Autist's Flag's a deepest Spectrum,

died with the rainbow of dum de dum.."

Phased said:

We autistic people need to get together, get organised, support one another with care and love and if necessary develop separate communities with enough power to protect us and allow us to thrive

What a rallying cry! 

Each sweet is a symptom, so I think support needs come when you have enough for a condition. So you can still require support as an NT if you have conditions like depression/eating disorders etc. You can reduce your sweet count for some conditions such as depression with support.

A completely fine person would likely have no sweets and never had sweets. Is this a very rare person in today's world?

I think that's where NT and ND differ. Where as some conditions you can get better from, being ND is more like what bag you put your sweets in -you can't switch your bag type, and we can't 'get better' from the selection that makes us ND?

We rely upon those upon the committee to be fair and impartial - I regret that the sample of people that I have encountered in life (including myself in this) makes me doubt whether anyone can be so all the time.  Therefore a committee needs to have a balance of people on it.  However this means that the committee decision will always be, at best, a compromise.

Most often a decision that "someone else" must do something about something - as they themselves are not those doing that thing there exists a separation between those who advise and decide and those who are tasked with acting out decisions.  This disconnection inevitably causes all sorts of human problems.

In practice we see humanity as being fundamentally competitive.  Even when the evidence is that only through collaboration and co-operation can humanity survive and progress.

We as autistic people are shown images of successful autistic people ostensibly to show us we can be too.

The reality is that only 1/4 of autistic people are in work.

All my life I have experienced stigmatism and bullying because I am autistic.

My family when I was a child who loved me did so and still do.

Through school this continued with fellow pupils and teachers,

In the workplace and in public.

This doesn’t make me feel good about myself.

I learned to push myself physically mentally and emotionally  further than I ever thought possible, defend myself physically and to a certain extent psychologically as well.

I went back to study and did well at that – drawing on what I could do to make me “superhuman” by the standards of capability that I had evidenced before.

Luckily I found support along the way because I was useful, I was cared for and some people saw something in me worthy of it.

From this position I have spent an awful lot of time and effort doing my utmost to be successful, fair to others and do good for others in order to feel good about myself and foster some sense of belonging.

Still as far, as how I experience being treated by wider society personally, this is not good enough for them. 

Personally i feel like I am being made to hate myself by society.

Evidence shows minority groups experience the most hatred by larger groups.

Evidence also shows that significant hatred exists within minority groups.

This all paints a rough picture for the future of autistic people unless by luck and hard work they can make themselves into one of those "elite" autists that we are shown as role models.

I am very, very worried, for myself yes, but also for future generations of autistic people.

We autistic people need to get together, get organised, support one another with care and love and if necessary develop separate communities with enough power to protect us and allow us to thrive. 

I certainly get the need to have ND people on commitee looking at ND services and everyone on the group doing the AQ50 would be an excellent idea.

********************

I like the pick and mix idea better, I'm stating to wonder if I have tourettes? Or if I'm just frustrated and swearing at things to relieve pressure?

If someone only picked 5 sweets from the pick and mix and were a bit meh about 3 or 4 more would that make the high or low functioning NT? We get classed as high and low functioning, but NT's manage to escape this, what ould make them high or low functioning, is this a missed opportunity to help those who might struggle with thier neurotypicality?

Yes, you make sense to me. Pic ‘n’ mix is a good example.

I think the medical model of ASD can be disabling for some autistic people.

When a person doesn’t necessarily score equally in each diagnostic element, the deficit model of ASD which utilises terminology such as ‘a little autistic’ and ‘very autistic’, reflects our conditions poorly. 

Even though the wheel isn’t a spectrum in the way Martin describes, it illustrates our strengths and challenges well. Personally, I think of ASD in 3D, as a ‘spectrum’ (diversity!) ball.

I have tried to find out via the internet if any record is available regarding the committee membership w/r/to autism with no success. 

During the run up to the budget I heard a multi-millionaire explain how wrong it would be to tax the rich more...

Without direct representation where are we I wonder...?

There is at least one openly autistic MP Politics Home | "All Peopled Out": Labour MP Cat Eccles On Being Autistic In Westminster  and reference in the article to a few being "neuro-spicy" ...  

Tricky as I can only imagine politics being absolutely full of social communication games that would leave me absolutely disadvantaged.

Oh and the fact that I would say something when really stressed that makes me out to be a complete weirdo...

This would be fascinating and a really helpful thing to do. 

I was listening to a podcast and they were saying it's confusing as there is kind of two different terms that get a bit mixed up.

• The spectrum of the actual ASD condition which is like the colour wheel (you can't be a little bit on this, your either have a wheel or you don't)
• and the range leading up to having it (if you don't quite qualify for diagnosis, you might still have the broader autistic phenotype. (BAP) Siblings of autistics might have this, as they share genes.

I've been thinking of it like a pic n mix at a sweet shop. Lots of different sweets, lots of different conditions. If you have over a certain number of sweets from the autism collection and it gives you stomach ache, you have it. But the selection you've picked can be different from someone else's. Some people have lots of sweets in their bag and have worse stomach ache, others don't have too many.

The main thing is people think they can be called a little autistic if they have a few sweets, but this won't give them stomach ache, so they don't really know what it's like to be autistic. 

I don't know if this makes sense to anyone else though!

TheCatWoman said:

So why is it presented as linear?

There is a good explanation here:

https://neuroclastic.com/its-a-spectrum-doesnt-mean-what-you-think/

Most non autistic men score an average of 17 and non autistic women an average of 15 on the AQ50 test. As most of you will know, autistic people usually score at least 32 on this test.

https://embrace-autism.com/autism-spectrum-quotient/

So if the average for non autistic people is around 16, there will of course be some who score lower - the "extreme" end of NT as you call it.

There is a likelihood that the majority in the HOL are NT, and that is why there is a need to hear from ND people, to give their perspective. Perhaps everyone involved in the reporting should be tested with the AQ50?

Being a diagnosed autistic person means you fulfil enough of the diagnostic criteria for diagnosis. Logically there will be people whose traits just fail to fulfil the necessary criteria. So there are people who indeed are a little autistic, but there will be lots of people who are have no autistic traits whatsoever, therefore not everyone is on the spectrum.

Being very NT would involve exhibiting the opposite characteristics to autists, whatever they may be. I imagine such a person would be immensely gregarious, unable to concentrate on anything for more than a minute, could not see individual details because they are unable to see past the 'big picture', be entirely impervious to sensory disequilibrium, have inflexible joints and have the heart and stomach of a concrete elephant.

I find it confusing to be honest, why is ND called a spectrum if it's not linear, why not call it something else, like a wheel?

So are we a cats cradle of intersecting points on a wheel, like blood splatter analysis at a crime scene?

What if someone's points on a wheel are all on one side or in one section?

Sorry this is reminding me of a zodiac, my chart looked like a balloon!

Speaking as scientist, all spectra are linear - different wavelengths in electromagnetic spectra or different masses in mass-spectrometry. What is shown above is a 'colour wheel' not a spectrum. Which just shows how medics and psychologists are not sufficiently scientific in their terminology.

We are not all on the spectrum - the autistic spectrum is a separate one

The distributions of Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) scores by the four... | Download Scientific Diagram

yes the neurotypical spectrum overlaps the autistic spectrum a bit (and yes maybe they're undiagnosed autists...)

Being very NT manifests itself in most of the problems wider society demonstrates.  Hehe in my opinion...

Many autistic people find the linear example of the spectrum problematic. The spectrum wheel overcomes the idea of people being ‘only a little bit autistic’ ‘too autistic” and ‘high/low functioning’. I like this version which I’ve posted elsewhere on the forum.

https://the-art-of-autism.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/UnderstandtheSpectrum.pdf

This website has modified Rebecca Burgess’ Spectrum Wheel’, and although it is a resource for parents and carers of young people, I found it helpful for self reflection. 

https://www.positivepartnerships.com.au/resources/practical-tools-information-sheets/diversity-wheel-planning-tool