We know that we behave and think differently. We generally have more difficulty with social situation and are hypersensitive to sensory input. But to me, these seem like impacts of a fundamental difference. For example, we have social difficulties in NT environments because something with our neurotype is different. What is that fundamental difference that manifests into the symptoms of autism?

So far, my best guess is that we don’t have the filter that NTs have with sensory input. They can decide what sensory information to focus on, allowing them to process information they see as important in real time. Additionally, they seem to be better able to multitask. For us, since we don’t have that filter and multi-core processor, it takes us longer to process sensory input.

The other thing is that since we are more sensitive to sensory stimuli, we can get overwhelmed much easier, which limits our ability to process the info.

These two together make it so that social situations are difficult to navigate. There’s wayy to much information to process in real time for us, so we end up missing a lot of the communication that is going on. For example, a person will send a nonverbal cue of some sort, but since we’re still focused on what they said and processing all the other surrounding stimuli, we miss it. Maybe much later, when alone and reviewing the interaction or discussing it with a friend, we might finally get to the nonverbal cue and realize we missed it.

What do you guys think? Am I on track? Are there other fundamental differences between neurotypes?

  • Paragone@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    I’m old, and have been studying this stuff for decades, but no longer have any idea where I encountered specific pieces of it.

    1. there is an individuation-forcing mechanism in human brain-developoment, where the tissue in the child-identity portion of the brain gets decimated, manufacturing a “teenager”.

    2. this local-decimation can go wrong, continuing through tissue that wasn’t supposed to get decimated…

    3. “all autistics are undermethylated-DNA”, from William J. Walsh’s “Nutrient Power” book.

    I’ve replicated his undermethylated-DNA disorder treatment, and it definitely works, so anybody declaring there’s “no evidence”, “no basis”, or “no science” behind it, can go eat rocks.

    Undermethylated-DNA ( without the “disorder” ) alters a person to be more

    • perfectionistic
    • high-strung
    • symbol-fixated
    • driven etc.

    Undermethylated-DNA disorder is when it’s deformed one’s mind to the point that it’s creating problems.

    From what I can see, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Richard Feynman ( with his obviously-autistic body-language, in the videos of him ), Tom Cruise, & probably Taylor Swift, all look undermethylated to me.

    I’m not accusing any of them of being in undermethylated-DNA disorder, however.

    Walsh discovered that there is a means of treating undermethylated-DNA disorder, and it works like this:

    take SAM-e, enteric-coated, with clear water or unsweetened tea/coffee, 40-ish mins before breakfast, & keep doing that, until it “bites in”, ( my term ), & works.

    For me, it was about 3 months, then suddenly it was obviously different.

    I’d never, in my entire life, experienced zero-stress, before.

    Never understood how different it felt.

    Totally stunning, world-altering understanding, that.

    4 months of Methionine supplementation also worked for me, but I obviously had the dose too-low, as it “took the edge off”, but it didn’t put me in zero-stress mode.

    I’ve tested both of those methods 2 times, they work.

    Walsh never explained about it having to be enteric-coated SAM-e ( otherwise it won’t work, as the stomach-acid destroys SAM-e ), and he never explained that you had to not eat any carbs, or any sweetener of any kind, until after the SAM-e nausea hits you, for it to work.

    Methionine also has a nausea effect, lesser than the SAM-e.

    Walsh explained that autism doesn’t need to smash a life, if you get the undermethylated-DNA treatment into your kid early enough, and I think it was before-11.

    I’m lucky: high-functioning autism is much less abusive of me than low-functioning autism is of the lives it clobbers, so late treatment gave me leverage I needed.

    I’m Vajrayana, however, & we push to do all our healing rooted in our minds, not in pills, so I’m hacking it without the chemical-help.

    1. there is a mechanism in the wiring-up-then-pruning-down of a forming brain ( human brains are fully-formed in the early-20’s, with myelation finishing then, & other processes calming down then, too )…

    whereby the intenser the undermethylation, the steeper the slope of the wiring-up & pruning-down.

    ( I bet my life on this: it is a scientifically-testable-prediction that fits all the evidence, even if no institutional-scientist has noticed it ).

    In autism, remember all autistics are undermethylated-DNA, the wiring-up happens a bit too steeply, & the pruning-down definitely happens too-steeply & too-deeply.

    What does this do?

    it produces a deficit-brain.

    In my case, it means that I’m mentally-“deafblind” to social-process, to social-consensus, etc.

    I’m a bulldozer among a suite of svelte sports cars, and not welcome because of how I “wreck the vibe” of acceptable people.

    Which is fine by me.

    It also means I’m defecient in understanding diversity-of-mental-others, so some understandings that others definitely have, I’m only-now finding-out that they exist ( after studying human-mind for decades ).

    Some autistics are deficit in social-process, others are deficit in other ways.

    1. you may have read about “idiot savants” who were produced through brain-injury…

    as-in somebody had part of their brain destroyed, & suddenly they became a super-calculator for some specific kind of thing, potentially music-ability, or estimating bricks, or whatever…

    That is key evidence: Normal sentience is balancing resource-contention between all sorts of different capacities, including social-process/social-consensus…

    However, with my social-process/social-consensus/social-process-addiction circuitry deficient, then … other circuitry works better, it works with less contention, see?

    but social-process is overload, to the degree that I’ll probably never watch a movie ever again ( been a decade since I last endured watching one on a computer ), and if I never have to be among people again for the entire rest of my life, that’s good with me.

    But I’m one hell of alot better than normal at understanding systems ( that interest me, like earning good intuition re fluid-dynamics, or solving psychology without Western-psychology’s ignoring/denying of the Buddhist 51-mental-factors, e.g. ).

    So, we had our balance destroyed, & in exchange we get specialized-capabilities, & endless stress-dysfunction …

    … remember I said that the Methionine supplementation can “take the edge off”?

    That’s important.

    For me, it removes some of my drive, though.

    the SAM-e, which removed my stress, removed my academic-drive.

    There’s no point in me living that way: I NEED academic-drive.

    So, … I ended up ditching the help, though I’ve got some methionine for “taking the edge off” if life ever gets too cutting-into-me, and I know it’ll take months for it to work…

    So, we’ve got the undermethylation-disorder, we’ve got the derailed-brain-development-process produced deficit, what else is there?

    continued in a follow-on comment, because the instance’s max-character-limit is smaller than this…

    …

    • Paragone@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Part 2…

      1. bullying.

      Bullying ( of us, for not being “normal enough” ) multiplies our stress, which damages our brain-development, which damages our ability to function, and it damages our ability to adapt to our damaged-brains…

      It’s a lose-lose-lose configuration, from our side.

      However, bullying of the damaged/weak is much easier than bullying the competent/capable, right?

      So, it’ll continue on us, because it’s “normal”.

      Prejudice.

      What would enable us, instead, is that when a person’s seen to be too undermethylated, they get & read that book by William J. Walsh, and do the experiment, themselves, to discover if the evidence gibves them leverage to alter their life-course, and if it does, use that leverage in the way which serves their own life, regardless of any “ideology”.

      1. vaccines?

      You will note that even the medical-science literature has admitted that there seems to be some overlap between autism & schizophrenia…

      William J. Walsh identified that “schizophrenia”, in 90% of cases, was either overmethylated-DNA disorder ( the hallucination-type “schizophrenia” ), undermethylated-DNA disorder ( the symbol-fixation/belief-fixation/conspiracism/distorted-belief type “schizophrenia” ), or pyrrol-disorder ( the PTSD-style flash-RAGES, of amygdala-hyjack )…

      Notice that autism is always undermethylated-DNA disorder, & 1 of the 3 kinds of “schizophrenia” is undermethylated-DNA disorder…

      Notice that research ( in the last decade ) discovered that autistics have oversized amygdala…

      Notice that the pyrrol-disorder is amygdala-hijack disorder, where the balance between the amygdala & the cortex is suddenly slammed to amygdala/panic-rage…

      See how they’re related?

      Now for the kicker:

      It’s been known for decades that “schizophrenia” seems to strike a life when a viral infection gets the subject…

      Brain-inflammation.

      What happens when you have a too-fine-balance brain, already-damaged, that you’re holding-together-with-sheer-will, alone, and brain-inflammation hits it?

      “the straw that broke the camel’s back”, is what.

      Does it matter if the brain-inflammation was caused by a virus, or if it was caused by a stacked-vaccine?

      How could it?

      It isn’t the trigger of the brain-inflammation that is breaking the child’s ability to hold-together, it is the brain-inflammation, itself that is!

      So, for those who are already at the brink of breaking, then ANY brain-inflammation, whether caused by live-wild-virus, or by stacked-vaccine, or by concussion, for that matter, would all likely have a “breakdown” … then.,

      The difference in our brains, though, is seeded before-birth.

      A perfectly-reliable method for producing “schizophrenia” in a population?

      block their mom’s exposure to sunshine for the entire last-trimester.

      Normally, that means having the last-trimester of pregnancy in winter ( because mom’s then all bundled-up, not getting her sunshine vitamin-D ).

      But there was a year in Spain, when overcast blocked sunshine for 3 months, & the babies born at the end of that 3-months had a higher schizophrenia rate.

      IT’S THE SAME UNDERLYING MECHANISM.

      The undermethylated-DNA disorder subset who is “autistic” is a subset of undermethylated-DNA disorder lives.

      The undermethylated-DNA disorder subset who is “schizophrenic” is a subset of undermethylated-DNA disorder lives.

      Correct the actual problem, not the mere-symptoms, and lives would do much better.

      Concentrate on correcting the undermethylated-DNA disorder, to the degree that is right for the autistic-in-question, & see the life begin healing more.

      Period.

      ( I’ve replicated his pyrrol-disorder treatment, too, and he mis-explains that one, as well:

      you need a mixture of zincs: zinc gluconate & zinc picolinate are both good & safe, so alternate 'em.

      Avoid zinc citrate, as it hits soooo fast, that you go into a roller-coaster that makes your inability to manage the PTSD-RAGEs dangerous, if you’ve also got all the other treatment-components in you, sufficiently…

      The root problem is that people with pyrrol-disorder are wrongly eradicating zinc from our bodies, some wierd biochem error, and instead storing waaay too much copper in our bodies.

      There is an opposite condition which does it the other way around, and gets people in prison, so don’t think that zinc is “inherently” good, or copper “inherently” bad, either…

      Arachidonic-acid precursor is required, I was using between 500mg & 1g of evening primrose oil per day ( alternating days, to average 750mg ),

      and so is P5P form of one of the vitamin-B’s.

      It’s sooo striking, you can even use the treatment as a clear-as-day diagnosis:

      give someone with the specific anger-instability the evg primrose oil supplement & the P5P every day, then after a few days put 'em in a rubber room & give 'em zinc citrate:

      IF they’ve pyrrol-disorder, they’ll be punching walls, probably from half-an-hour after getting the zinc citrate to a few hours later, on some chaotic sine-waves of ANGER.

      You simply can’t ask for a more-objective evidence of “does this person have this condition” than that.

      This is brilliantly-clean evidence-based medicine.

      Not tolerated by doctors, of course, because no medical-authority, only evidence & correct-reason, is backing it.

      That will never change: dad was a doctor, their ideology/prejudice is indellible.

      No matter how many of our lives are destroyed, they won’t tolerate that truth was spoken outside their authority. )

      Everything I give here I’ve tested to be true, except for my scientifically-testable-prediction, which, being a prediction, requires to be tested to discover if it’s true, as theory/logic+evidence says it is.

      Salut, Namaste, & Kaizen.

      _ /\ _

  • Orac@feddit.nlEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    Are you familiar with the theory of predictive processing? If not, look it up esp. In relation to autism. Tldr: human brains do not process information to form an image of the world, but we predict what the world may look like at any given moment. We use our sensory input only to correct errors in our prediction. There are two thing at play with autism here. 1. We are aware of more errors than NTs (inability to sift critical errors from non-critical ones) 2. When human brains detect an error it can choose to believe the input or the prediction. NT brains assign higher value to normative rules (sometimes they value input more and other times the prediction (internalized belief)) While autistic brains give more value to sensory input. Anyway, this is what I know of the current state of neurological difference, but I’m no scientist.

    • Mr. Semi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      I’ve always described it as NT experiencing the world as how they “feel” about it, and not as concrete reality.

      I really want to participate in a game of telephone with all autistics.

      • ladytaters@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        That made me think of a quote from Temple Grandin that seems to sum up my experience with being autistic - “I identify more with what I do than with how I feel”. It seems like that might be the same for you?

      • howrar@lemmy.caEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        Perfect transcription over a few steps, followed by a sudden complete breakdown

      • surewhynotlem@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        It’s great. If they have PDA then they’re all lying about what they heard because you told them how to play, and going against the rules makes them giggle.

        Source: the people in my house are this.

      • Gonkulator@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        Yea, youre hot on the trail. If I remember correctly, too many neural connections in certain areas of the brain, too few elsewhere. Read up and comment here. Would make good conversation. I havent looked at this stuff in a while.

        • oracle@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          It said too many local connections, not enough long range connections, ie get stuck on details and no big picture. It’s pretty close to what I know as autism, but in medical jargon. It doesn’t state an important known part though, in that autistic left/right hemisphere utilization is the opposite of a normal brain. Normal is something like 45 left/55 right, autistic is 55 left/45 right. If you’ll notice, autism causes issues with all skills considered to be right brain (language, emotions, spatial, etc)…

          tl;dr overthink step 1, forgot step 2 though 9, last step failed, meltdown

  • nikaaa@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    Yes, I believe that you are on track. It is mostly sensitivity that makes us overwhelmed a lot, which can cause the symptom of freezing (like, standing still completely) or panicking.

    The upside of it is that it makes it possible to go much more into depth with complicated topics than NT people, the downside is not performing well in crowded areas.