Re: Donna , etc.

[Guest guest]

> > In fact according to some accounts,

> > including Temple Grandin, multiple personalities is part of autism

> > (not always though, just sometimes).

>

> I have read both of Ms. Grandin's books, and I remember no such

reference. If

> you can cite a more specific quote, I would like to go read it.

If you read the book by Oliver Sacs called " Onthropologist on Mars "

he had many chapters on different neurological conditions where he

described his interviews with people who had those conditions. In his

chapter for autism, which is also called " Onthropologist on Mars " he

interviewed Temple Grandin and there she told him how she could once

draw better then usual when she identified with one of the painters

she saw. It was just a one time experience as far as he describes it.

MPD is one of

> those things it was popular to say you had for a while...

In case of Donna I think it wasn't a lie since she spent her

three books with references to Carol and Willie. In fact she herself

refuses to call it MPD (if the popularity was the issue then she

wouldn't refuse to call it that) insisting that all if it is just

autism and I can see why. But I can suppose (means say it as

hypothesis), and some will agree, that it could be some mild variant

of MPD.

> Autistic development is history. Once it happens, it is

permanent. You can

> improve things a great deal, but the brain in the skull will always

be an

> autistic brain.

Think of it this way. PTSD can knock an NT brain far away from its

standards without changing its structure at all. Likewise, why can't

autistic brain be knocked out by pure psychological factor? So its

conceivable that while structural differences are still there, this

strong psychological factor exactly cancels it making it function

like NT would.

Besides, not all autistics show structural differences in the brain.

In fact I read that in some cases no differences are found at all and

its a complete mystery why a person acts autistic other than he does.

> If anyone recovered, they were not autistic to start with.

They were, since they met DSM 4 criteria, which is the definition of

being or not being autistic. Even if they didn't have any structural

differences (which some autistics don't), they still met the criteria.

> > First off, she

> > described putting herself on all serts of diets to treat her

> > autism.

>

> Oh yes... lots of people try those. All of the desparate parents

that want to

> fix their kid go for those. They may help a bit at times, but the

people that

> sell you on these things promise a quantum leap in " normal "

behavior, which is

> unrealistic. Most of the benefit from these things is the placebo

effect in

> the parents.

Placebo can act only on the individual, not on his parents. Think

about it: why would an individual act normally just because his

parents think this way. When an individual himself things that way

then its a different story, but a lot of kids on GF/CF are too young

to know what its all about and thus wouldn't have any placebo.

By the way, its quite objective. I have read how kids start learn

better once on GFCF and I have read how after they accidentally got

glutain or caisen into their system they would regress for the next

few weeks but eventually recover.

In fact it has a basis to it: some autistics have difficulties with

dijective system so they can't diject glutein or caisin AND THERE ARE

TESTS THAT DETERMINE WHETHER OR NOT A GIVEN AUTISTIC IS HAS GLUTAIN/

CAESIN INTOLERANCE AND THUS WHETHER OR NOT THE DIET IS APPLICABLE.

Donna had those intolerances. So anyway, when glutain/

caesin can't get disjested it acts like an alcohol and makes them

drunk so to say. So I guess it might be a different form of autism:

not the one due to structural abnormalities but due to getting drunk

all the time, which explains why not all kids have those structural

abnormalities. Anyway, Donna had many of such problems:

besides glutein/ caesin intolerance, she also had diabetis among many

other things (BTW I have heard that some diabetic can start acting

crazy if their diabetis is out of control) and when she took care of

it her symptoms went down quite a bit. Thats one of the ways she

could " fight autism " .

> > In fact there

> > are people who develop Post Troaumatic Stress Disorder which

changed

> > their personality completely.

>

> It did not change the structure of the brain. Do an MRI of someone

before and

> after a major trauma-- you are not going to see the difference.

True, but yet there is a significant difference in their behavior,

and they aren't faking their new behaviour either. So likewise if

someone is autistic, nothing can change the structure of brain, but

you can still significantly change their behavior without having them

fake it, such as happens in PTSD. So those psychological factors on

behavior will exactly cancel the structural factor.

> > Think what you want but what she wrote is a fact. You have a fact

in

> > front of you that as a child she thought as autistic and as an

adult

> > she thought like an NT in autistic shell. Its fact.

>

> No, it is not. It is only fact that she *claimed* that. She's

wrong... it

> really is that simple.

Think of it this way: may be you are in denial of some kind about

something so your brain made up your whole life to cover it up.

Everything can be a denial, but in order not to doubt things on the

level of Descartes you have to draw a line somewhere. For instance, I

don't have any problem accepting that what I saw one night was a

dream, but I wouldn't generalize it for the whole life. Likewise, a

denial wouldn't typically be something CENTRAL in the biography,

especially with such detailed descriptions of how it all felt. If

something is a denial, you cna't describe it on many pages since you

haven't actually experienced it, even if your brain makes you think

you did. Her denials do not just account for something in one of the

chapters. They are the central part of most of her book.

Sure, it might not fit with your views of autism. But I also see some

surprizes as I go along with my life. Yet, when I am surprize about

something falling out of the picture, I don't go say that I am

dreaming. Rather I accept it as a fact and either take it as an

exception to the picture or if I have enough exeptions then I change

a picture. Likewise, sure, I could of said she is in denial, just as

I could of refer to every surprise as a dream. But I just don't.

> The core of autism is in the brain structure, and that is

permanent.

The only way you know it is by observing many people. Given that

definition of autism has nothing to do with brain structure, nothing

stops someone from falling into that definition. As I said, some

autistics don't have any structural differences detectable by MRI.

> And that is precisely why I hate the " person with autism "

expression. A person

> does not " have " autism any more than a person can " have " blackness

(referring

> to the black or negroid race). One IS black or he IS not.

Blackness cannot be

> overcome or cured. One cannot fight his blackness, or say

that " that was not

> him; that was the blackness. " It is who and what someone is. It

makes no

> sense to view it as an adjunct, as in something that someone has.

It is not.

> It is something that someone IS-- like autism.

>

>

Well, but a black can also be a man or a woman, autistic or NT, etc.

Just as " black " alone does not define who the person it, " autistic "

alone doesn't define who the person is either. There are other

factors to the person. Therefore, if one of the factors are taken

away, then everything else will still keep it the same person. You

have to take enough of the components away to make it no more Donna

but somebody else. I think enough is a relative thing and for you

autism along is enough, for her it isn't.

> Of course not. This really is not as hard as it seems to be.

Anyone that says

> that autism is not the same as the person either does not know

about autism, or

> they are in denial about it, and cannot admit to themselves that it

is not

> something that can be stripped away if the right therapy or drug or

nutrient

> was found.

WELL, SO IN DONNA'S CASE RIGHT THERAPY *WAS* FOUND WHICH WAS HER

DIET!!!

>

> > For instance, normals wouldn't be able to take the square

> > roots of 4 digid numbers.

>

> Hell, neither can I. Most autistics are not savants, and a lot of

those are

> not math savants.

This was just an example. What I really meant was that in a planet

with full of autistics an NT can single out one of the " differences "

(if not numbers then something else) as a major part of their NTness

to overcome. So they might say in this sense NTness is not me.

Really, Donna simply didn't mean her whole autism there. IN

FACT SHE EVEN CRITICISED THAT CONCEPT OF RECOVERING FROM AUTISM. FOR

INSTANCE SHE DESCRIBED MEETING A RECOVERED AUTISTIC AND NOTICING THAT

AUTISM WAS STILL THERE AND THAT THE SO CALLED RECOVERY DID NOTHING

BUT DAMAGE. SHE THEN WENT ON SAYING THAT RECOVERY ISN " T POSSIBLE AND

AUTISTICS SHOULD LEARN NOT TO FAKE IT BUT TO BE THE WAY THEY ARE. So

in the phrase " autism is not me " she didn't mean it as general as it

sounded like.

> Now, about differences between Ms. and myself in terms of

opinion

> about whether autism is the person or not: One of us is right, the

other is

> wrong. There is no coexistence.

Sure there is! Its entirely conceivable that two different people

meet the same criteria (which is what it means to be autistic) for

totally different reasons. After all, criteria doen't refer to

neurology or anything else beyond behavior and the criteria is a

definition of autism.

>This lack of social relatedness is a core feature of autism;

In this case how come autistics don't like NTs looking down on them?

If they aren't socially related at all then they won't care.

You are contradicting yourself in those two following statements:

----------------------STATEMENT ONE--------------------------------

>> or that they can can separate thinking from emotions

> > *absolutely*.

>

> Aw hell, I know from recent experience that I cannot do this

totally.

> Autistics can generally do it to a high degree, and NTs cannot do

this well if

> at all... but that is not to say that autistics can do it totally.

------------------------STATEMENT TWO-----------------------------

STATEMENT TWO)> > By the way, thinking and emotions are inseparable.

>

> In NTs they are. In autistics, they are not. I can usually

totally disconnect

> my emotions and use logic only. In fact, this is my primary

operating mode. I

> go through much of my day without any feelings about most things.

I did not

> realize that this was unusual until I read that NTs cannot separate

logic and

> emotion in Temple Grandin's book.

I was shocked. Not only _can_ I separate

> them, I do so for most of the day, every day. Emotions and logic

are as

> different as apples and doctors to me. They are mutually

exclusive, and if I

> am in a mode where I am using emotion, I am generally quite aware

that my logic

> centers are offline... and when I am in that state, I don't care.

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You contradicted yourself in statement one and statement two. In

statement two you said they can not in principle go together and it

was inconceivable to you how NT do it. On the other hand in statement

one you said that you yourself can't always separate them, which

means that you can't refrain from doing something you find impossible

to do, right?

By the way, Einstein referred to the first time he thought of

principle of equivalence as " the happiest thought in my life " . If it

was completely separate from his emotions it couldn't be " happy "

thought at all.

In fact, even when you are obsorbed in scientific inquiry and don't

care about prestige or much anything but solving your problem, you

are being motivated by the WISH to understand. The WISH is an

emotion. Finding a solution is linked to the feeling of satisfaction.

Not neceserely prestige-- it could be your own satisfaction out of

finally understanding a difficult theorem that was already proven by

others. But that feeling is still an emotion. If your thoughts

weren't linked to emotion, there would be no reason for thinking.