We are not compatible with the school system because we don't know how to behave and it doesn't stretch us (I hated it but fitted in better than many in my position, except when it came to maths. A certain teacher aimed questions at me, in front of the whole class, deliberately to humiliate me as he knew I couldn't answer them).
We are non conformist, not because we deliberately want to rebel against authority but because we don't have the social skills to fit in (we are size ten feet in size five shoes as I once put it). Our rebellions (temper tantrums) are because of sensory overload. Like a bucking bronco we kick off unwanted pressure and distractions from outside. For instance when I was a volunteer at The Dunn Nutrition Centre in Cambridge, I lost my temper because my room was beside the toilet block and I got fed up with banging doors and toilet seats. I locked the entrance into it and threw the keys in the courtyard, leaving shortly after that.
Digestive sensitivity (histamine reaction to wheat and food additives), disclosed themselves through indigestion, hay fever and twenty odd years of migraines. It may also be why I have to continually crack joints in my body (not only knuckles but knees, wrists, neck, lower back, between the shoulder blades, ankles and for some odd reason my left big toe but not my right). I also have restless leg syndrome, which is probably an offshoot of this. I also flick, tap and raise individual fingers, which I assume is my form of ticking but not like a clock.
Why is apparent deafness is one of autism's principle symptoms? Well that is because hyper visual concentration means shutting out all distractions from the other senses and that includes sound, hence the appearance of deafness. Even ordinary people need to do that because sound especially, turns our attention outwards into the world and away from visual attention aimed down and in.
The OCD component is I believe two fold but related. The first is the obvious fear of contagion (disease mostly) and the second is a fear of chaos. This is why we have our own rituals and the urge to create order around us (disease and dis-ease as objective and subjective parts of the condition). Illness creates internal chaos in our bodies and dis-order does the same thing with our minds.
Visual thinkers like me can instantly see answers to why things are the way they are. If you look at my writings (philosophical speculation), you will see that they are formulaic or even balanced equations, unless I didn't write my thoughts down instantly when they came to me, in which case they would have rambled into lengthy diatribes, no better in most cases than anyone else.
I too find talk confusing because of its speed and the efforts of verbalisers to work in depth is minimised. Temple Grandin’s point about the blind using bat echo location, falls into line with my point about sign language and forcing the deaf to talk. They have no sonic feedback ability, so cannot improve their ability to talk. They do see however and can speak with their hands as quickly and fluently as verbal speakers can with their mouths. My next door neighbour has developed motor neurone disease, so can no longer speak clearly but her handwriting is still as legible as it ever was, so this remains her principle means of communication.
Alters, valences and MPD sufferers are all attempts to take on the characteristics of those who are more successful in society than we are (adopt their persons).
At school my maths teacher at secondary level, always picked on me because he knew I couldn't answer any abstract questions he threw me. Then on the last day of the final term in his class, he produced a game for the whole of the class to solve and I was the only one to work it out because it was visual (you have two rows of three coins, arranged so that the top row is offset, sitting on the bottom row: all the coins touch two others and you have to turn the design into a circle by moving one coin at a time, so that they still touch two other coins, until the figure is complete).
When the autistic talk about their condition being a traumatic experience, they are correct. My wife broke her wrist about a month ago and since then has had an NT arm and an autistic arm. The injured hand is ultra sensitive. When she uses it to touch the sleeve of her jacket, it feels like sack cloth she says but the other hand has no such effect (hot and cold are equally contrary).
When I used to have migraines, it was the same for me but there was little discernible difference in body sides just a whole body sensitivity to touch, light, sound, smell and taste (in all cases input was too much). This makes me wonder if it's the same for epileptics and stroke victims? Is autism simply nerve damage that remains undetectable by our present medical technology, which in turn is not sensitive enough to pick up such data?
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