High versus low functioning autism- Donna Williams...

[yurt1]

In August Donna Williams sent round something to her mailing group about the difference between high and low functioning autism. I emailed her earlier to ask if I could share it publically. She's replied to say that she's edited it and out it on her blog here The bit she sent round was the second one - in response to Adam Feinstein's question.

I think it's really interesting and when I read it last summer it put into words what I had been thinking for some time.

It seems relevant to a few threads running at the moment which is why I've given it one of its own

[bullet123]

That is very well written, thank you for putting it up.
Aside from the obvious fact that I am high functioning and Aspergers I do not try and fit myself into a rigid definition. Donna's talk abotu her sense of self is something I think I can relate to. I was saying on another forum a while ago that one reason why my self help skills are so poor for me is because I do not think of myself as me. When I think it os as though I am always talking to someone else, how I feel physically, the fact that I am me, separate from other people and unique in my thoughts is somethign I really have to concentrate on to understand and it only happens every now and then. Most of the time, if it makes sense, I feel detached from myself.
I can talk to other people and I can do the basics, or at least know the theory of the basics in taking care of myself and whilst I can have poor motor planning I have none of the severe perceptual differences or the involuntary movements that a person who is more severely on the spectrum would face. In a way I think I have it a lot easier than someone who has been aware from an earlier age of their differences and who has struggled to compensate for these differences, to try and fit in. For myself, since I never had the wish to fit in socially (that doesn't mean I don't like other people I do, I just don't have the fretting about whether they like me) and since I have been content to remain in my comfortable sphere, I have been spared a lot of the difficulties other high functioning people might have had. And of course I do not have the same level of difficulties and differences that a person who would be classed as low functioning has.

[yurt1]

oh that's interesting (I love your posts bullet). Something that really altered ds1's sense of self was learning to imitate. It was as if he suddenly realised how he was connected to others and that the things that other people were doing could also relate to him.

[magso]

Thanks Yurt and Bullet!