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7:09pm May 20, 2014
alljustletters asked: hi! i've been reading your blog for a while now and there's a lot of things you write about that i can identify with a lot, especially experiences you convey about being autistic. thing is, i'm not on the spectrum, not that i know of at least and i'm confused. like, i suck at self-diagnosing. the only thing doctors ever said about me was that i am depressed and have social anxiety. but i feel like i'm atypical in many more respects, so ... could you suggest a place to start informing myself?

Unfortunately my brain isn’t working very well right now.  But in the autistic community, we sometimes talk about ‘cousins’.  Like the word AC will mean “autistic and cousin”.  And cousin basically is someone who’s neurodivergent in some other way besides autism, but who has a lot in common with autism because of their neurodivergence.  They could have anything from schizophrenia to hydrocephalus, it’s not really the exact condition that matters, just the similarity to autism, the ability to identify with autistic people and often interact with autistic people almost as if one of us.  It’s not a medical term, it’s more a community term.  The closest medical term would be BAP (Broader Autism Phenotype) but even that doesn’t quite mean the same thing.  The shrink who diagnosed me called himself a 'cousin’ because he had ADHD and learning disabilities and language problems that made him have a lot in common with us.  Unfortunately I can’t suggest research places yet but maybe someone replying to this can?

Notes:
  1. alljustletters reblogged this from karalianne and added:
    thanks a lot for the replies. it’s good to know there’s at least a word like cousin, though i think i’m going to look...
  2. karalianne reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone and added:
    All the places I used to go way back when are gone, like ASA. Trolls. Ugh. I mean, my first real introduction to this...
  3. glasslullabies said: One thing I would maybe recommend looking into is borderline personality disorder. I was raised by parents with aspergers (sorry for the spelling) and I feel like the conditions have similarities. (Sorry if this is weird or vague)
  4. proletariangothic reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone
  5. withasmoothroundstone posted this