keryTotebag

I'm diagnosed with Level 2 autism. My best friend at one point in my life was paranoid schizophrenic, and I've only experienced psychosis under intense prolonged masking (months of masking at a time).

I also don't suppress social ambiguity very well in language. When I say something to someone else, i register its ambiguity as i say it, that's why i add many caveats when i feel comfortable with someone, or I stop talking and feel kinda distractible. I don't feel "invested" in verbally eliminating ambiguity, unless i know the other person just doesn't like it, no matter how many times I've gotten pushback from other ppl regarding my caveats.

I think the reason why ppl see autistic ppl as quasi‐psychotic is bc many of us cope with neuro‐typological differences (being surrounded by undersupportive allistic/non‐autistic ppl) by going catatonic, either hyperkinetically—agitation, overload—or akinetically—shutdown. But i assume non-autistic ppl would also shutdown if forced to appear autistic.

Another reason for the "psychotic" label is that the autistic children who require more support also need that support (and their support needs are recognized more clearly by non‐autistic ppl) more acutely bc they have co‐occuring intellectual disability, which isn't the same thing as autism.

Allism (which shouldn't be forgotten as a category just bc it's "normative"/majority), autism, neuroticism, psychosis, perversion, are probably "separate" spectrums that overlap depending on neurology and personality. I'm assuming that there's just a bigger gap between a "very autistic" (Level 2) and a normatively allistic person due to how institutions have only been built for the latter, while only asylums and restraints have been built for autistic ppl who aren't at Level 1 (adjacent to allistic ppl). That might actually have to do with how Level 1 has been mainstreamed and accommodated, but also might have to do with them being less autistic and thus easier for restrictive institutions to make room for Level 1, however limited, and if course even more limited by discrimination based on race, gender, etc...

That catatonic stuff doesn't happen to me very often when I'm around ppl who understand me. And if i go beyond autistic catatonia & into more schizophreniform psychosis, it's brief, it goes away easily (eases off into catatonia) as soon as i stop masking, and that level of psychosis actually makes it *easier* (emotionally) for me to mask bc I'm too psychotic to really process the distress consciously. So psychosis for me is kind of... against my autistic traits. Maybe some autistic ppl are also schizophrenic & would therefore have a different relationship with psychosis—one where their psychosis amplifies rather than negates their autistic processing.

If i force myself to appear or speak less autistically/more allistically, it can only be accomplished through cognitive shutdown or a kind of negative, simple psychosis if I try to persist through a shutdown.

Allism/non‐autism, as a mask, is psychoticizing to me. I'm assuming that non‐autistic ppl would also be psychoticized if they were forced to appear autistically.

I don't foreclose "the name of the father". I have the same limits of "other" (I need help understanding non‐autistic others, the same way, well reverse way, that allistic ppl need help understanding ppl like me as a Big Other).

Lacan could just be labeling the ALLISTIC sense of big/general other/non‐self as "Big" bc he's not autistic and is essentializing the allistic general sense of otherness as the natural mode for our whole species when that's just not true. Allistic bias.

I relate more to the big "m/Other" of Ettinger (transsubjective "presentifiers", instead of the classical Big Other), but i can kind of code‐switch to approximate the allistic relationship to "Big Other" if im around enough friendly allistic ppl. Just like non‐autistic ppl have learned to understand my "m/Other" presentification of ambiguity when they care to get to know me. I've also met autistic ppl who seem very comfortable with a stereotypically masculine sense of autonomy, so they seem to have that "f/Ather"/Other master signifier just fine, so this whole m/Other thing could just be due to my personality type (psychological) rather than my neuro-type.

It's just a different relationship to otherness. Autistic otherness i guess.

I had to learn to put this stuff into words due to being online, but a lot of this can be communicated through riffing with other ppl.

Maybe for autistic ppl, any non‐autistic otherness has to be synthetic but our understanding of a Big Other is just an autistic other. And allistic ppl's "Big Other" is also limited to an allistic other, and their synthetic other is autistic. It's not that one neurotype, allism, has full access to something "Bigger" than autistic ppl have access to.

I'm diagnosed with "Level 2" which isn't "high functioning", and I'm hyperverbal when i feel comfortable and was selectively mute in elementary school.

I've talked to nonspeaking autistic adults through text, and met Level 3'ers (profound autism) and Level 1'ers (slight autism, closer to allistic ppl) too.