OK, so whilst there’s a war about who is autistic, who has Aspergers, whether someone with AS can once have been more autistic, whether someone autism can become someone with Aspergers or outgrow degrees of their autism, the group people most don’t ‘get’ are those slightly outside of the bell curve who nevertheless have the type of personality traits that mean they experience their oddity profoundly or move in circles which are so normality monging that they can smell a weirdo at 500 paces. Who are these people who feel they have no disability but identify as having AS, even identify as ‘Autistics’? Often they are people with subclinical Aspergers Syndrome. Read the rest of this entry »

If you identified with AS, wanted to confirm your own identification with the label, but had no significant disabilities why would you seek a medical diagnosis? Read the rest of this entry »

Anna Kennedy wanted to interview me about bullying. I invited her to send me 6 questions. Here’s our interview. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to Aspergion

ADAM FEINSTEIN:
Hi Donna, sorry to trouble you, but I am currently reading a 2005 article by Brigitte Chamak about the autobiographical writings of people with autism and she contrasts your position and that of Temple Grandin and Jim Sinclair. Chamak says that Temple sees her particular gifts as inextricably linked to her autism and quotes Sinclair as saying that his autism is a “way of being … It is not possible to separate the autism from the person.” Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve met Aspies with and without Personality Disorders... including some with NPD, BPD and Antisocial… but more often those with Avoidant, Dependent, Obsessive-Compulsive or Schizoid personality disorders… so if their PDs constituted 50-70% of what they and others termed their AS, and they were proud of their ‘AS’, are THOSE ONES actually inadvertently saying they are celebrating ‘Personality Disorder pride’? Read the rest of this entry »

I have worked with attachment disordered kids with autism and those who are not. Sometimes its a matter of the level of sensory perceptual chaos they live with, sometimes its about growing up treated more as a case/condition than a person, SOMETIMES its about being in an intensive program your particular personality PERCEIVES as repeatedly invasive, abusive, traumatizing even if an achievement driven (such as those with OCPD), pleaser types (those with AvPD) might thrive in exactly the same program. Of course if we acknowledge any of this we’d have to lose the idea of one-size-fits-all approaches. Read the rest of this entry »

I was asked if I’d ever heard of Disorganised Syndrome. Wow! At first I thought, how funny, don’t we ALL have disorganized syndrome! Then I thought, what a stupid, stupid world, that we are labeling and pathologising everything we consider ‘imperfect’. BUT…. yes, I did some quick research and yes, there IS a condition called Disorganised Syndrome! Read the rest of this entry »

DID is Dissociative Identity Disorder. It is a DISSOCIATIVE DISORDER and part of a SPECTRUM of DISSOCIATIVE DISORDERS… so is PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and all human beings dissociate, especially before age 5. Read the rest of this entry »

As an autism consultant since 1996, I thought I’d do some Autism myth busting. I asked the 5000 people on my FB page to suggest a stereotype, assumption or belief about autism and lets do some myth busting. Here’s how it went: Read the rest of this entry »