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Welcome to From the Spectrum Podcast. This is a podcast about autism.

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It is my goal to explain what is autism. I intend to use a mixture of scientific literature,

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personal experience, and some opinion. With opinions, I will explain why I feel the way I do

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and give examples. I will provide links to various references for each episode. For each episode,

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we will discuss various aspects of autism. The From the Spectrum Podcast will mostly avoid

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causes of autism. And I will try avoiding the increases of diagnoses of late. This is like

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playing tug of war with barbed wire and I don't think I want to travel down that path.

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For today's episode, I will spend time discussing symptoms from the DSM-5-TR. These symptoms are

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crude and it tends to capture the spectrum. In addition, I will provide personal examples,

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observations of others, and dialogue from others. First, a brief history of autism.

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In 1943, Leo Kanner published a paper in pathology called Autistic Disservances of Effective

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Contact. This paper has been cited 17,738 times. This paper begins by mentioning observing these

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disturbances in 1938. A year later in 1944, Hans Asperger from Asperger Syndrome published Autistic

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Psychopathy. This is the beginning of the phenomena. Autism is placed in the neurodevelopmental

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disorders of the DSM-5-TR. Some related disorders within this section includes OCD, which is a

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cyclical loop in the so-called cortical striatum salamos circuit, involving the cortex, which

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is involved with executive functioning, planning, and running models about our world around us.

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The striatum, which is in the basal ganglia in the so-called go-no-go area of the brain.

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The striatum is related to go-directed motivation and habits that meet movement, motor movement,

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and the thalamus. I like to think of the thalamus like a skyscraper in a big city. Many various

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people are coming in the revolving door, and some are going to the same office, and some are going

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to different offices. But they all make a stay and have different objectives while there. At the same

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time, people are leaving through the revolving door and going to many different places about the

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city or the world. This represents the many downstream destinations for our circuitry.

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Now, with OCD, imagine someone constantly being stuck in the revolving door.

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Also, ticks, turrets, speech and language, and schizophrenia. With schizophrenia, there are many

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types. However, mainly, autism lacks the positive symptoms of schizophrenia, which includes delusions

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and hallucinations. Here, there is a common gene linked here in the striatum called catnap.

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Scientifically, it's called CNT-NAP2, and this is a protein that implicates the striatum.

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The catnap gene also implicates focal epilepsy or focal seizures, which is sometimes related to autism.

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Also in the DSM-5 similar to autism is Schizoid Personality Disorder, which is a cluster A

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personality disorder. These are often referred to as odd and eccentric. Lastly, anxiety tracks

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common with autism. There are three levels of autism based on needed support. I am level one,

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which requires support. There is level two, requiring substantial support, and level three,

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requires very substantial support. Now for the symptoms. Criteria A has three symptoms,

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and is known as deficits in social communication and interaction.

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A requires all three symptoms from current functioning or a history of the symptom.

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Criteria B has four symptoms, and known as restricted and repetitive behaviors.

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B requires two symptoms. In an episode of Peter Atia's Drive featuring my favorite psychiatrist

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and neuroscientist, Carl Deisaroth, Peter calls autism something with superpowers

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and super deficits. I will provide a link to the section they discuss about autism,

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and we will parse that out when discussing Criteria A. In the meantime, I believe the layperson

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and some professionals are hitched on Criteria A. This is because it is easier to observe,

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and I have an opinion about humans investigative tendency. It has come to my attention, humans

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love whatever makes sense to them, whatever they can make sense of. We get to a point and discover

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an answer, and that makes sense to us. And we say, yes, that must be it, or yes, that is it.

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However, something must be causing whatever that discovery is. So, as we review these symptoms,

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I ask you to take notice of how restrictive and repetitive behaviors can complicate our socialness

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and relationships. The restricted and repetitive behaviors mixed with a lack of opportunity

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and ability to understand socialness causes a vast conundrum, a confusing paradox of socialness.

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I suspect Criteria B causes Criteria A. Maybe not entirely, because of some other factors

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we will discuss later. But a major contributor of the known social phenotype,

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perhaps all of these things happening in our thoughts and imagination are, or over time,

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become more and more interesting to us. And this is safer than the outside world.

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In the Dicerothetia podcast, Carl mentioned something very interesting to me.

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It is unknown if autism and whatever genetic mutations give the person the introverted phenotype

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for protection because of the sensory processing challenges, or if this is possibly learned at

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a young age, possibly in the so-called critical stage. Wonderful as usual by Diceroth. For context,

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as a psychiatrist, autism is one of his two specialties. In his words, described in his book

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Projections, he wants to help this underserved population. He also accurately mentions there

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is no medical treatment for autism. It is my opinion we find our superpowers and do that.

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Something that might help is increasing the understanding of what is autism.

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Now let's review Criteria B. We will first review B to understand how this could implicate Criteria

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A. I do not feel A can implicate B. Well, besides people interfering with the following symptoms

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that we so much enjoy, these symptoms are not exhaustive, neither by the DSM or the ones that I

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add to the conversation. B1, stereotype or repetitive motor movements, use of objects,

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or speech. Anytime you hear stereotypy, it is wrong. Stereotypy or stereotypy suggests purposeless

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behavior. This is a misnomer. There is purpose to these characteristics and movements.

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Other examples include simple motor stereotypies. Remember that closeness to ticks. This is a

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localized energy from a buildup of something. And this causes concentration to relieve that buildup.

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The movements satisfy that.

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I enjoy squeezing and rocking. Other examples include hand flapping, nail and lip biting,

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hair twirling, clenching or grinding teeth, head banging, which I used to do as a child,

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and staring at objects. I like to rub my hands across each other, sometimes squeezing quite

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intensely, and sometimes rubbing softly. Or I like to rub my fingers across my palms. I like to

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squeeze my hands. I like wadding up paper towels into a ball and squeezing in my palm, especially

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the rough style paper towels. I often do this, including doing this during the entire time of

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the 8-2 mod 4. I don't think this was caught during the assessment. I enjoy washing my hands with

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rough style soap. When COVID happened and the so-called experts said to wash hands for 20 seconds,

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I was confused. I thought that wasn't nearly enough time. And I thought that before, during,

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during and after COVID. I thought it was 60 seconds. However, maybe this is just my preference

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and experience with washing my hands for longer than the 20 seconds. In short, maybe this is my creation.

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For clenching and grinding teeth, I do this. And I remember as a young child riding in a car,

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I would clench and grind teeth and only release them when we passed an electrical

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pole or sometimes called a telephone pole. Anything in between, I had to be clenching my teeth.

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And it was very repetitive. It was almost necessary that I do this while traveling in the car.

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I am that I am still fascinated with the rhythmic movements of the telephone poles

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coming at me and passing me while driving or riding in a car. Today, I occasionally still

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find myself doing the clenching and noticing the telephone poles passing by.

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Other examples include lining up toys or objects. I like to straighten everything in lines

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with perfect or similar gap or spacing. Everything in my work area desk table.

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I like to have those in order stacked up neatly with the edges matching and everything spaced out

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just right. Other examples include flipping objects and eco-lalia. Eco-lalia is mean.

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It allows me to process and learn. And when we discuss criteria A, we will go into eco-lalia

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a little bit more. People with eco-lalia can do this immediately or long after or both.

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About a year ago, while grocery shopping, I heard I heard an old man while his wife put

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something in the cart. The old man had a country accent and it was very capturing to me. And as

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his wife put something in the cart, the old man said, well go on get you with you.

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In a very country like accent, I don't know if it was the accent, the rare use of those words

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or just a combination of it. But I was immediately hitched on this and I said it to myself immediately.

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By the time I left the store, I must have said it dozens of times, eventually out loud.

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I went on to say this over and over again for about six to eight months.

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So much that my two teenagers picked up on it and learned it and they would randomly say it.

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Until a point, they had enough of it and they said, Dad, you can't do that anymore.

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We've had enough of it. I was reminded of a Seinfeld episode when they were doing this silly

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hello out of the side of their mouth and eventually one or two of them just got tired of it,

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even though one or two of the others still wanted to continue it.

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People just get satisfied with something and it's just time to move on. Sometimes with

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echolalia, it's hard to move on. It's almost like that cyclical loop. Now B2, which is insistence

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on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines or ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior.

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Examples include extreme distress as small changes, difficulties with transitions,

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rigid thinking patterns, which is just no gray areas. Gray areas to me are complicated,

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unnecessary and introduce many forms of interpretations.

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People with autism or autistics, we are very literal. We need context. We enjoy the context

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and structure. We have a strict obedience to rules, especially our own set of rules.

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Remember our routines. This is what works for us. For those wondering, if you have something to say

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to us, just say it. You don't have to beat around the bush or present, introduce it in gray areas.

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Just say it. We also have a tendency for perfectionism, replaying events and conversations

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we can overthink and overanalyze. This is a great source of anxiety and how this trait

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implicates social life. Also, we miss sarcasm and humor. I tend to think about others in that

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let me have it. You won't touch the degree of critic that I will have on myself or likely that I

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already have had on my life or on myself regarding whatever it is, topic, discussion,

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subject you want to talk about. Often, when people approach us for something wrong,

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we have already analyzed it and exhausted it. I ask you to consider that degree of pressure

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we have to fit in or adhere to those created social norms.

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Now we can consider how our routines are preferred and entangled in us in our nervous system,

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either from birth or learned from experience at that early age. However, I suspect this allows

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us to consider the sense of a superpower. About 10 or 15 years ago, an animated movie came out

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about bees called Bee Movie and it featured Jerry Seinfeld playing the main character

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and he had a real close friend. They were adolescent in the movie about to graduate

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high school or just graduating high school and Jerry was discouraged about the life within the

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beehive. Everything was the same every day and it operated with extreme efficiency.

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I don't think he liked that routine and he wanted to do something different.

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As Jerry and his buddy Bee were talking, the camera panned out and it showed thousands

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or hundreds of thousands, possibly a million bees buzzing around in extreme efficiency at high pace

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and such a perfect secrecy. And as soon as I saw that, I thought, this is how I live. This is how

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few things my sensations and autism is essentially a sensory processing disorder.

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However, this allows for great efficiency and routine and we eventually prefer that.

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Also, this suggests less room for negotiating with myself.

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I see it. I see the pictures and movie is flowing in my head. Then I can over analyze it and plan it

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and do it. I am very precise with my planning. I know the exact details. I will exhaust this out in my

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reflection. However, sometimes because how unpredictable the world is, especially from a

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social context, life doesn't work like that. Here I am speaking about other people or situations

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complicating those plans or routines. Other symptoms include greeting rituals,

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a need for same route or travel, need for same foods every day. Oftentimes, people will prepare

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several items or sides for a meal. And this has always been strange to me. I don't quite understand it.

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I love the same clothes. I have several of the exact items. If it makes sense, it makes sense.

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I have severe B2. For me, this stampens my ability in socialness and certainly

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building and maintaining relationships.

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B3. Highly restricted, fixated interest that are abnormal in intensity or focus.

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First, dissecting abnormal. This suggests this can be a super deficit. However, if known,

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if applied to your life, abnormal is definitely a superpower.

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This makes commitment nearly impossible in the social world. Certainly challenging.

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This is another factor that lessens opportunity to develop social skills. A component with

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commitment is worrying about an out. And will the relationship interfere with our time alone,

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our time for our interest, the things that we would prefer to be doing? Also, I struggle with how easy

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others can act, how they do. And what do I care about other trivial factors of their life? I don't

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mean this to be rude. It's just there are many other things more interesting to me.

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Other examples include a strong attachment to or a preoccupation with unusual objects.

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Unusual is a poor use of information. To me and others, it is a form of removing our interest

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more so we can act more like you. Not interested. I think do better. I think that decision of using

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unusual is a hallmark example of someone or some people injecting themselves in what they consider

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normal abnormal or unusual. Find your superpower and do that. Another example is circumscribed

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or pervative interest. This is just repetitive behaviors.

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I am happy to provide a link to an episode from the autistic woman called Meet My Autistic Brain.

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She has a wonderful episode on this that is a great podcast worthy of checking out.

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B2 and B3 are severe to me. However, having them and having them for most or probably all of my life,

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they are awesome and I wouldn't change it. As a young child in the mid 80s, around five, six,

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or seven, I was extremely fixated on the Vietnam War. I remember wanting to ask people about it,

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but in a way they wouldn't comment on my obvious strong interest in it.

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That in a combination of my poor speech and language, it was difficult. I could not form

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proper questioning that would extract the information I wanted about the Vietnam War

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while decreasing the risk of any comments made directed at me about this strong fixated interest.

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It was very awkward for me. I remember that buildup of energy in my body wanting to talk about it,

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the intensity of trying to ask about it, and the struggles of not getting it out at times.

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Still today, I can talk about the Vietnam War. Remember when I was a child in the 80s,

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it wasn't far removed, maybe 10 or 15 years after the Vietnam War.

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In the third grade, I remember only wanting to write Vietnam novels. I would read children versions

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of these books and piece together information that I did receive from other people and create

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my own Vietnam books. Fiction, of course. These intense fixations have never stopped,

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and they do get intense. Sometimes in my history, they have implicated relationships

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in my social life quite severely. These fixations can happen and become so energized

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that I thought something else could be wrong. It is extremely intense with psychology and

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neuroscience. Our nervous system is so much. I wake up and do what is probably the normal waking

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up process other people have. Slow to wake and eventually you come to and you're ready to

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do on your task and get your day started. 10 to 15 minutes after I wake, my brain is blasting

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out pictures as I provide dialogue to it. Whatever interest that I'm in at that time or that morning.

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I am professing to myself and I suspect my learning accelerates because of this.

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It is a wonderful phenomenon. It is a superpower. Then 15 to 20 minutes later,

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motor movements begin. I will stem more, move my hands as someone does when speaking,

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then it intensifies to me moving my lips. And finally, I will speak it out loud while pacing.

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And often the pacing can intensify. It's like I am professing to a class on whatever topic,

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subject or interest that I am in at that moment. I think this is indeed a method for that accelerated

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learning. Another personal example is I worked in an engineering department for about 10 years

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for a machining operation. Now, the machining operation would take raw materials and machine

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these down to certain dimensions. And each part had a blueprint with a few dozen dimensions listed

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on them showing the nominal, usually in millimeters and the tolerance level in microns.

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And my department was responsible for cutting up the machining and cutting tools for the machines,

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the CNC and lathe type machines. So the cutting tools had their own sets of dimensions and

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tolerances. I got to a point where I can memorize both the part dimensions and tolerances and the

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cutting tool dimensions and tolerances. This allowed me to work at extreme efficiency at high

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rates of speed. So much that others thought I must be skipping steps. Superiors, coworkers,

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other departments and other engineers, I was very entry level as point suspected that.

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And it got to a point where I could just I would name off dimensions to them. And it took a while

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for them to accept that to qualify that I was right. That what I was saying was indeed correct.

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And I thought, this is taking too many trials. I don't understand why it's just not believed.

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But with human social tendency of just speaking, often I think others just speak without providing

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much context to the conversation. Now back to the dimensions. It took too many trials and I'm not

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the type of person nor other autistics or people with the social phenotype to just say stuff,

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just to be saying stuff. This was very odd and a good example of how our superpowers aren't quite

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accepted or are they take longer to accept than what they should. However, this allowed me to work

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at that great efficiency. And I eventually made promotions, a few different promotions while

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working for this. This company is a very tall corporation, meaning there is layers into the

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hierarchy. It's very there are many layers to the hierarchy. And I worked my way up quite a bit

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and had a decent job. In a future episode of from the spectrum podcast, we will go into the anxiety

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and just the social exhaustiveness of the outside world and including employment. Employment is very

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difficult. Lastly is before, which is hyper or hypo reactivity to sensory input or unusual interest

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in sensory aspects of the environment. Apparent indifference to pain and temperature. Adverse

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response to specific sounds or textures. Excessive smelling or touching of objects. Visual fascination

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with lights or movements. This sensory input is it. This complicates socialness and eye contact.

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If you know, you know, meaning if this is you, you know. If this is not you, then you don't know.

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Visual and sensations are like watching TV and fast forward, maybe two and a half or two times

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speed. This is a wonderful example of superpower and super deficit. So what socialness is hard

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and making eye contact is hard. It's hard to keep up with. Socialness and eye contact are two

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different things. I am talking about super deficits here. Before I continue, I will say this eye

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contact as a component of socialness is a very human thought and creation, meaning it doesn't

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impact the conveyance to me. So what if someone is not making eye contact with me while speaking

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to me? Speech and language or speech and language and eye contact. If I could teach people one

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thing in life, a major consideration for this one thing would be never underestimate a human's

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capacity to think. How is that relevant here? That's a good question. It is relevant because

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as the receiver processes the spoken information, the receiver at some point, you make a decision

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that the speaker isn't making eye contact and therefore the message or the spoken words are

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implicated. But are they? Or is that created by the receiver? The eyes are for image forming

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and non-image forming parts of our biology. The ears are auditory. This suggests the use of eye

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contact is needed for conveying speech and language and that is created from human thought.

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Questions or comments, please reach out. However, as I mentioned earlier about superpowers

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and super deficits, these visual inputs, along with other sensations, provide opportunity for

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extreme efficiency. It allows opportunity for increased processing and visualized thought

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and seeing things in real time and prior to things happening. You might often hear about

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pattern seekers or pattern thinkers with autism. So if you think about visual thinkers and pattern

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thinkers, think about those hyperconnected sensory processes. After all, it seems autism is simply a

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sensory processing phenomena. And I like that. In some cases, or maybe most cases, autism spectrum

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disorder can be considered autism spectrum phenomena. As a side note, because my tribe

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often have trouble with marketing and advocating for ourselves, From the Spectrum podcast offers

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t-shirts. Right now, we have one saying From the Spectrum podcast and one saying Autism Spectrum

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Disorder with Disorder Marked Out and phenomena written under it. Look out for more information

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on these. Now, mostly I have talked about visual sensations. Mainly humans have a dynamic visual

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system. The eyes are indeed brain. The eyes are not an independent connection to the brain.

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And we certainly use the eyes to navigate the world. Now, as mentioned with v2 and v3,

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I have severe b4 as well. As we wrap up today's episode on criteria b, I asked you to understand

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how these symptoms implicate our ability to socialize and build and maintain relationships.

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If you know someone with autism or in a relationship with someone with autism, please understand this.

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You often cannot see criteria b. It is very hard to discover from the outside as a spectator

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and to investigate. In future episodes, we will review scales and tools associated with criteria b.

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Please consider the various challenges discussed today. And thank you for listening to the first

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episode of From the Spectrum podcast.