Autism recovery story

[Wolfgangus Faldestolius]

... poor immediate visual comprehension while I'm quite good in other areas. It is like I can understand people by self correcting hunches so I do not need to pay immediate attention... Well, ... . Also being a math "nerd" [I just love its simplicity and interconnections are beautiful - while I'm not into extreme rigor] does not help with the correct diagnosis.

I fell off the maths conveyor belt to my huge grief - and I have learned to value my visual comprehension. I love the concept self-correcting hunches!

 

[Wolfgangus Faldestolius]

The AQ and a few other tests said I was autistic and now they say I'm not. In my case it was very clear and obvious but I'm not interested in convincing anyone since I don't care if anyone believes me.

I used CBT a few years ago for anxiety. It helped with anxiety but I don't think it made me any less autistic. More recently, I watched a serious of 8 short YouTube videos titled "ASD CBT Video for Children", thought about what beliefs I've had for a long time, and changed those beliefs. Once I did that, my stress went away and I could suddenly understand people.

The key is to change your core beliefs about yourself and other people which can be done in one day. A big one was the belief that I was different. I saw myself as autistic and most other people as normal/neurotypical which is black and white thinking. Afterwards, I saw myself as a normal person with problems like everyone else. Everyone is normal. We're all human. We all want to be loved and accepted. None of our problems define who we are as a person.

I also found out that most of the problems I had with other people were due to misunderstandings. I knew people misunderstand me often but I wasn't aware until I used CBT the second time that I was misunderstanding other people just as often.

Thank you Formerly for your post 76. These views strike a very different impression from your previous ones.

Recovery is partial and it is in ASC not from it. As we have to manage our own lives, whether we are diabetic or whatever, whatever we do and don't do well or badly, results in different traits being presented to those around us.

An AQ is a rather rough tool. I diagnosed myself from Donna Williams' autobiography which doesn't contain scales, it shows qualities, especially in the matter of sensory processing and intensity.

The "authorities" behind the reports you've now cited are inclined to over-promote themselves as holding out the more "effective" "solution" to the world's having us "problem people" around.

To me, "autistic" never had the slightest negative connotation. I reject the word "disorder" utterly and I notice you accept the word "disorder" - why?

 

[Progster]

Slow processing also occurs in non-autistic people with autistic traits who are part of the broader autism phenotype (BAP) which is similar to ASD but milder. If someone born with the BAP felt rejected when they were a baby, the depression and anxiety that resulted would, as you say, exacerbate their autistic symptoms. That could result in them qualifying for an ASD diagnosis. If they overcame their depression and anxiety, their level of symptoms could be reduced to the point where they no longer qualified for as ASD diagnosis. That would be considered recovering from autism. If that wasn't the case, because they still had autistic traits, then you'd have to redefine autism to include everyone that's part of the BAP.

It's certainly true that aleviating depression and anxiety can help aleviate symptoms of autism, or make them easier to manage, but it's not true for every autistic person that they grew up feeling rejected - autistics come from all sorts of backgrounds, many come from loving families. And even if they do learn coping skills and can mask their traits and appear, on the surface, not to be autistic, that doesn't mean that their autism has disappeared, because autism isn't just about what is on the surface, but what is on the inside, their internal struggles and emotions. Autism is with you for life, it doesn't just disappear.

Also, many NTs, or people with autistic traits, come from unstable family backgrounds. or abusive backgrounds, but that doesn't mean that they are going to end up clinically autistic. So this theory is a factor that might play a role in the development of a child, but it is not the full answer.

 

[Wolfgangus Faldestolius]

... at least some of the symptoms used to diagnose autism aren't genetic.

- I say bodily; interplay of many genes; nutrition, allergens might in some cases come in (also).

- used by who, for who. With what motives and purposes. You have got to open doors for you. You see your traits. This forum is for you and me.

 

[onlything]

The key is to change your core beliefs about yourself and other people which can be done in one day.

I agree that the key to a better life is to change some of the key beliefs everyone holds. However, one day? That's too simple, too idealistic.

Specific human mindset or belief is like a tent pole stuck in the ground. One, if you already have the tent set up, you are subconsciously highly resistant to moving it unless you have to. And two, even if you move it, you still are left with holes in the soil.

While you can change beliefs, it takes time and a lot of work. Which is one of the reason why It's so difficult for people to form new habits or cut off old ones. You can keep up a specific new belief for a day, a few days, maybe a week or two - but thought patterns are persistent and they like to come back if you don't have a strong foundation - and they return from time to time even if you do.

Examples. Working out some of my depression, stuck in negative thought pattern took me three years before I even truly started to be able to think a positive thought and mean it. And implementing a growth mindset took me almost a year so far and I still stumble from time to time. It's a long process, there's no 'magical pill'.

Maybe it was easier for you for this specific belief since you jumped, so typically, from the extreme of 'I am different so the world and people rejected me' to 'I am normal and the same as everyone'. Maybe you were desperately looking for hope, for a way out of a diagnosis you hated and didn't want and decided to embrace this belief, be it a lie or not? You will know soon enough. Lying to oneself turns you bitter and twisted, so I truly hope that it's a real change for you and that you stay happy, instead of waking up one day angry and dissatisfied, and depressed.

Stay well and thank you for this thread. While it wasn't helpful, it was still moderately interesting and slightly informative, with a touch of amusement. Everyone can choose what they want to believe after reading it... And I think I myself fit the general consensus of 'No'.

Edit: The one certain thing it has shown is that if you want to get autistic people really worked up and ready for a discusion-war about something, tell them that they can be easily 'cured' if they only try better

 

[Thinx]

Slow processing also occurs in non-autistic people with autistic traits who are part of the broader autism phenotype (BAP) which is similar to ASD but milder. If someone born with the BAP felt rejected when they were a baby, the depression and anxiety that resulted would, as you say, exacerbate their autistic symptoms. That could result in them qualifying for an ASD diagnosis. If they overcame their depression and anxiety, their level of symptoms could be reduced to the point where they no longer qualified for as ASD diagnosis. That would be considered recovering from autism. If that wasn't the case, because they still had autistic traits, then you'd have to redefine autism to include everyone that's part of the BAP.

Here you argue that people with BAP may get diagnosed with ASD if they are also depressed and anxious, and that if they recover from the depression and anxiety they will then no longer have autism?

So, what you were saying in your first post, then, was, if the only thing getting a person a behavioural diagnosis of autism which arguably they shouldnt have had was depression and anxiety, which the person then recovers from, they may not get the diagnosis, as their autism traits in the first place were insufficient to merit it? I see. This is about the variables and difficulties of behavioural diagnosis then, really.

I have never had a behavioural diagnosis of autism, nor do I think I would get one. To me, the marker of the neurological difference that I have was only able to be clarified after I had worked on my issues in therapy for many years, but despite extensive success, still could not account for or change certain aspects of how I am, such as difficulties in unstructured social interaction and with to and fro communication, slow processing, poor executive function, difficulties in maintaining relationships,etc.

My training in family therapy enabled me to work with and study Aspergers and autism at that stage, a happy coincidence and I was then able to realise that the Bermuda triangle that beset me in areas of unstructured social communication and life generally, was actually exactly as it seemed, that there wasn't something further I could learn to change this inner experience, as I had tirelessly tried to do in therapy and self development throughout my life, because in fact, I had a different brain.

Furthermore, I was then able to find that understanding was currently dawning that female socialisation, alongside diagnostic terms based on male phenotype expression, has complicated recognition of autism in women and girls. I recognised many aspects of myself at that point, through researching this and reading more from women with autism and clinicians, about autism as it is for many socialised as women.

This helped me realise that there were aspects of how I experienced the world that I couldn't change, but could work around with strategies that may enable best compromise with how I am.

Something I particularly learned in my journey that may be useful to you, OP, is that Attachment theory based on the work of John Bowlby and extended by many others, a fully researched and tested theory, applies to all, NT or ND, and that attachment processes that lead towards ability to maintain secure attachments, are able to be extended and worked on despite a difficult start or upbringing, so that although this isn't always easy to work on when one has slow processing, difficulties with to and fro communication and unstructured social situations, poor executive function and other setbacks due to brain difference, nevertheless progress can be made.

People who feel genuinely secure in themselves are able to extend tolerance and support more easily in relating to others, and this development really only occurs through ongoing attention to and work on self in relating. I recommend therapy, therapy groups, couples counselling and work on self in this area to you, and others who want to extend their progress with relating.

 

[Alexej]

I just added 2 paragraphs to my OP to explain the purpose of the story since it appears everyone misunderstood what I was trying to say. I didn't include those details at first because I was worried the post would be too long that no one would read it.

I have just been back to the OP.
I did not copy the OP offline so I cant easily compare the OP with the revision.

For me it would be helpful to clarify in the post the changes - but perhaps that is just me.

 

[Wolfgangus Faldestolius]

FormerlyAutistic said: ↑
The key is to change your core beliefs about yourself and other people which can be done in one day.​

Yes, we do it a fragment at a time, and we work hard reminding ourselves every day after.

 

[Thinx]

FormerlyAutistic said: ↑
The key is to change your core beliefs about yourself and other people which can be done in one day.​

Yes, we do it a fragment at a time, and we work hard reminding ourselves every day after.

Yes, but unfortunately that's not the key to changing hardwired brain difference. Aspects of how we are aren't changeable in this way, as many of us who have worked long and hard on ourselves and changed what is genuinely changeable, know.

I'd say the key to helping ourselves with brain difference is understanding that there are differences we can't change, and appreciating ourselves for who we are, also working on strategies to help with any unchangeable aspects that cause us difficulties. Like someone with dyslexia has to, or someone who is short and can't see over a wall. The environment can be changed to assist, in both cases. And strategies will differ according to what works for an individual.

 

[Wolfgangus Faldestolius]

Yes, but unfortunately that's not the key to changing hardwired brain difference. Aspects of how we are aren't changeable in this way, as many of us who have worked long and hard on ourselves and changed what is genuinely changeable, know.

I'd say the key to helping ourselves with brain difference is understanding that there are differences we can't change, and appreciating ourselves for who we are, also working on strategies to help with any unchangeable aspects that cause us difficulties. Like someone with dyslexia has to, or someone who is short and can't see over a wall. The environment can be changed to assist, in both cases. And strategies will differ according to what works for an individual.

Yes, this is correct, it is up to Formerly to now acknowledge the distinction. Our acceptable realities (including self-respect in pain) come to underlie our self-belief instead of nebulous prejudices or doubts.

 

[SimplyWandering]

I just read a large part of this thread and i feel like ive been trolled by the OP the whole time.

Just because you fix little parts about yourself and no longer feel "autistic" does not make you any less autistic.

 

[SDRSpark]

Edit: The one certain thing it has shown is that if you want to get autistic people really worked up and ready for a discusion-war about something, tell them that they can be easily 'cured' if they only try better

And why should we want to?

I for one, do not. I'm 32 years old. I've worked my butt off to make my way in life up until this point.

I do NOT want to have to learn an entirely new way of existing at this point in my life. That would basically mean starting over from square one...

To take someone's tent analogy a step further, that wouldn't be moving the tent, it would be moving a multi-story building complete with digging a new foundation.

There's just no way I want to spend the next 32 years working to get to where I am now with a new set of parameters.

 

[Wolfgangus Faldestolius]

I just read a large part of this thread and i feel like ive been trolled by the OP the whole time.

Just because you fix little parts about yourself and no longer feel "autistic" does not make you any less autistic.

None of the strengths you mentioned are part of the diagnostic criteria for autism. They are autistic traits and I wrote that autistic traits are genetic.

What I'm saying is that stress caused by a person's beliefs can impair their thinking and make it difficult to understand people, interpret things too literally, and cause them to have difficulty reading emotions.

What's with "diagnostic criteria"? To open our own doors and self-manage (whether or not we had a conventional childhood diagnosis), we need to own our whole profile. 8 billion people out there face the self-management challenge, and most will cut corners, while we know we can benefit ourselves from aforethought.

Have you bought into the shame model?

 

[Matthias]

Sorry, I may need more clarification on this.
Have you taken tests like these in the past before coming to the forums. Or did you take them, saw your results, and took them again?

It wasn't my intention to prove whether you do or don't have autism, but as a means for you to understand some examples of behavioral signs in autism through the questions provided in them

I took the tests several years ago and I was well within the autistic range. Then, I took them again last year after I felt normal using CBT and I was well within the normal range.

I did think to myself afterward that maybe I was never really autistic but the thing that convinced me is that I read Bettelheim's book afterward and he described in detail what happened to children who recovered from classic autism and it was exactly what I experienced. Here's one example: I went from being almost insensitive to pain to suddenly becoming very sensitive to pain which lasted 2 or 3 months before ending up with pain sensitivity in-between what I had before and after I tried CBT.

But the matter of the fact is that not everyone is normal.

EVERYONE is normal. Dividing people into two groups is a cognitive distortion called dichotomous (or black and white) thinking. That thinking error causes stress which impairs a person's ability to think clearly. I'm sure most people would agree they can't think as clearly or as rationally when they are angry. That's true of every emotion as well as stress.

Here are some examples:

Someone with IQ below 70 thinks, "I'm retarded. I wish I was normal." Better belief - "I'm a normal person with below average intelligence."

Someone who is severly psychotic thinks, "I'm not normal. I'm crazy. " Better belief - "I'm a normal person suffering from a mental disturbance."

A severely autistic person thinks, "My brain is wired differently so I can't understand people as well as normal people." Better belief - "I'm a normal person who has difficulty understanding people."

 

[onlything]

And why should we want to?

I for one, do not. I'm 32 years old. I've worked my butt off to make my way in life up until this point.

I do NOT want to have to learn an entirely new way of existing at this point in my life. That would basically mean starting over from square one...

To take someone's tent analogy a step further, that wouldn't be moving the tent, it would be moving a multi-story building complete with digging a new foundation.

There's just no way I want to spend the next 32 years working to get to where I am now with a new set of parameters.

I agree. It was more of a slightly (self-)mocking, slightly amusing admission of discerning the way in which we are quite predictable.

Although I have to say that some mindsets can only hurt you at the end of the day, so it is always a good idea to get to know yourself well (as you most probably already did) and discern if there are any. Sometimes changing yourself, for example to stop self-destructing or negative patterns of behaviours, is in your own best interest.

 

[onlything]

EVERYONE is normal. Dividing people into two groups is a cognitive distortion called dichotomous (or black and white) thinking.

Normalcy, I find, is quite subjective and mostly dictated by the majority of the society. What is normal for you may never be normal to others. For example, even if you consider yourself as a normal person that have trouble with communication, most people in the world will still see you as strange, maybe even freaky - definitely not normal.

That's why I don't like this word, it's too easy to twist. I can see myself as quite typical in an autistic community, but not really objectively normal in the wide community (although I keep the view of my behaviour and quirks being normal and accepted by myself). I suppose in the long run I prefer to call myself quirky - an acceptance of both my own and the majority-based view on my specific behaviour and needs.

 

[SDRSpark]

I took the tests several years ago and I was well within the autistic range. Then, I took them again last year after I felt normal using CBT and I was well within the normal range.

I did think to myself afterward that maybe I was never really autistic but the thing that convinced me is that I read Bettelheim's book afterward and he described in detail what happened to children who recovered from classic autism and it was exactly what I experienced. Here's one example: I went from being almost insensitive to pain to suddenly becoming very sensitive to pain which lasted 2 or 3 months before ending up with pain sensitivity in-between what I had before and after I tried CBT.




EVERYONE is normal. Dividing people into two groups is a cognitive distortion called dichotomous (or black and white) thinking. That thinking error causes stress which impairs a person's ability to think clearly. I'm sure most people would agree they can't think as clearly or as rationally when they are angry. That's true of every emotion as well as stress.

Here are some examples:

Someone with IQ below 70 thinks, "I'm retarded. I wish I was normal." Better belief - "I'm a normal person with below average intelligence."

Someone who is severly psychotic thinks, "I'm not normal. I'm crazy. " Better belief - "I'm a normal person suffering from a mental disturbance."

A severely autistic person thinks, "My brain is wired differently so I can't understand people as well as normal people." Better belief - "I'm a normal person who has difficulty understanding people."

The problem with saying people are "normal" is it's dismissive. I've heard this my entire life. "You're just quirky". I know people who say this are trying to make me feel better about myself, but here's the thing: I don't feel bad about myself in the first place. There's nothing wrong with being autistic.

Understanding that I'm autistic and what that means has allowed me to understand why I am the way I am, why I do the things I do, and most critically: how to work with what I have in order to live my best life.

"Normal" me couldn't manage very well at all. Autistic me understands sensory issues and meltdowns, and how to mitigate those issues in order to prevent the stress and overwhelm that leads to at best, discomfort and at worst, very bad situations. Autistic me understands my difficulties in understanding people's motives which allows me to make adjustments to the way I interact with others. This in turn keeps me safe(r). Autistic me understands that I don't communicate the way others do, and this allows me to be clear about what my needs are when communicating with others, so that we can bridge the gap between my communication style and theirs. Autistic me understands that I don't know my own emotions all that well, and that I need to put in effort - by putting in that effort, I can greatly improve my life.

These are all greatly positive changes which were withheld from me by insisting that I'm normal. Understanding that I'm autistic allowed me to work with these things and find a way to work around them or better yet, make them work for me. I couldn't do any of that when I was trying to see myself as "normal" and not understanding why I was failing so miserably at things that others found effortless. Recognizing that I'm not in fact normal, has afforded me a great deal of self compassion that I wasn't able to have before and has released me from a lot of shame that I carried as a result of the things I couldn't seem to get right.

Being "normal" isn't a good thing at all, in my case.

 

[Matthias]

It's certainly true that aleviating depression and anxiety can help aleviate symptoms of autism, or make them easier to manage, but it's not true for every autistic person that they grew up feeling rejected - autistics come from all sorts of backgrounds, many come from loving families.

I'm well aware that everyone's family history is different and have never claimed nor believed that every autistic person felt rejected. I posted one story about one person with classic autism.

And even if they do learn coping skills and can mask their traits and appear, on the surface, not to be autistic, that doesn't mean that their autism has disappeared, because autism isn't just about what is on the surface, but what is on the inside, their internal struggles and emotions. Autism is with you for life, it doesn't just disappear.

Also, many NTs, or people with autistic traits, come from unstable family backgrounds. or abusive backgrounds, but that doesn't mean that they are going to end up clinically autistic. So this theory is a factor that might play a role in the development of a child, but not the answer.

I'm well aware of that. It's also true that people without problems don't get labeled by doctors with having a disorder. Originally, only autistic people who were severely depressed met the criteria for autism. Then, it got broadened to include people with anxiety. The genetic basis of autism is probably the broader autism phenotype but that's not enough to qualify as having a disorder. You have to add anxiety, depression, and other problems to get symptoms severe enough to qualify as having a disorder.

 

[Wolfgangus Faldestolius]

... You have to add anxiety, depression, and other problems to get symptoms severe enough to qualify as having a disorder.

How gracious you are to allow us to qualify as having a disorder when you want us to.

 

[SDRSpark]

The genetic basis of autism is probably the broader autism phenotype but that's not enough to qualify as having a disorder. You have to add anxiety, depression, and other problems to get symptoms severe enough to qualify as having a disorder.

And this is the exact thinking that has harmed myself and so many of us. Having the information and community that we need to thrive withheld from us because we're "too high functioning to qualify".

You've just summed up perfectly everything that's wrong with your line of thinking.