This article was originally published in First Person Plural’s Spring edition of Rainbow’s End (Volume 23, Issue 1).
Autism has been a long held interest of ours. Despite relating so much to what we read, we never felt that we were autistic ‘enough’, so it took us a long time to explore that diagnosis for ourselves. We have since learnt that autism in women and girls is under recognised because of a misogynistic rating criteria based on research that has traditionally almost entirely excluded this population. Recognition of the different presentation of autism in women and girls is improving but it does mean that, as with DID, Autism is often diagnosed later in life after years of confusion about and alienation from the social world.
Autism is primarily identified as having difficulties with, or perhaps more accurately an atypical style of, communicating and interacting with others. In addition an autistic person will likely have sensory processing differences, problems with executive functioning and praxis, want a high degree of predictability in life manifesting in rigid routines and rituals, may have a special interest in a very specific topic or area and is likely to engage in stimming – a repetitive self soothing behaviour.
We had been exploring our multiplicity for sometime before we realised we could be autistic too. This was a confusing time for us. As for so many others with DID, many parts were reluctant to believe or accept that we were multiple or that we had experienced abuse. As our understanding of the presentation of autism in women and girls increased we noticed many similarities in the expression of both autism and DID. Parts used these similarities as ‘proof’ that we didn’t have DID, it took us a long time to understand that it could be ‘both, and’. The following diagram illustrates what we have identified as the main commonalities between autism and DID, demonstrating that although they may look the same their aetiology is different:
Of course once we had established with all parts of self that it was a case of both autism and DID, parts then began to argue that perhaps the DID was caused simply by the experience of living as an autistic person. It is a sad fact that autistic people are more likely to experience trauma than non-autistics. Existing in a world which overwhelms our senses, that we struggle to connect to, in which we are repeatedly marginalised, left out, treated as other, leaves us with a long history of trauma. Regardless of their content the way we tend to store memories, through the senses, means we relive these somatically, akin to flashbacks. Our tendency towards repetition and fixations leaves us vulnerable to developing Post Traumatic Disorders. Our difficulties reading and understanding body language and social cues leaves us vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.
In addition autists have a high propensity to use dissociation as a coping mechanism for surviving the socially and sensorilly invasive world that we have been born into. According to Polly Samuels (autistic expert with DID) a susceptibility to using this survival skill combined with increased experiences of trauma, chronic stress and social isolation mean that we are more likely to develop DID. Some autistic people do develop DID because of our tendency towards dissociation and all the repeated traumas described above, but for us we are having to accept that it was also the result of abuse, this is a work in progress, denial is such an effective coping strategy!
We are proud to be autistic and have enjoyed feeling part of the neurodiverse community. We have been interested recently in the conversations around whether DID is a form of neurodiversity. Neurodiversity, a phrase first coined by Judy Singer, was posited as a political term to highlight the advantages of having diversity in neurotypes. Judy posited that every one is neurodiverse – because everyone is different. Her aim was to unite neurological minorities – those who’s brains work in an atypical way to the ‘average Jo’, in order for us to have an identity politic which enabled us to further our demands to be included and appreciated in all areas of life – not to be seen as something to be fixed, but to view our strengths for what they are and how these contribute to a healthy and diverse society. Since then the term ‘neurodiverse’ has been adopted by the community and is used instead of Judy’s ‘neurological minority’. Knowing the history of the neurodiversity movement, it seems clear to me that DID is another form of neurodiversity.
We like this idea of honouring our DID as neurodiversity, focussing on how our differing neurotype can enable us to contribute to our community and to society. Identifying as multiply neurodivergent helps us to reframe our disabilities from a deficits based model to a strengths based one. One in which we can see how being autistic allows access to huge reservoirs of empathy within us, a strong sense of justice and an eye for detail, and that being multiple allows us to tap into a great sense of fun, makes us resilient and enables us to be able to keep calm in a crisis.
We started a blog about being autistic and multiple to share our experiences and help raise awareness. Since then we have been contacted by several people who share our multiply neurodivergent experiences. It has been an honour to hear from them and so affirming to be able to share our experiences together.
Diagram illustrating what we have identified as the main commonalities between autism and DID was inspired by;
Stavropoulos K, Bolourian Y & Blacher J (2018) Differential Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder and Post Traumatic Spectrum Disorder: Two clinical cases. Journal of clinical medicine. 7 (4):71 (accessible at: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/7/4/71/htm)
A very scholarly and informative article Liv. Thank you again !
Mike