Insiders With Autism or Asperger's?

by Mary and Allegra

During the past couple of years, we've begun to notice a relationship, however slight, between dissociation/multiplicity and the autistic spectrum.  A few multiples we've known (and perhaps others who aren't aware and/or haven't said anything about it) have also lived with autism or Asperger's.

It would mean a great deal to us, and would be very helpful to our healing process, if we could speak with anyone in the online multiple community who does.  We know that only a professional can provide a diagnosis, but we'd like to share more of our story.

We've believed on some level since college (early 1980s) that we had some kind of special-needs issue that had been missed/overlooked by clinicians and caregivers when we were growing up (1960s/70s). We were/are very intelligent but very quiet (particularly quiet outside the home), and we did very well academically, but we had poor social skills and were virtually unable to express our emotional needs, despite being very articulate when we did speak.

We've also always had a strong need for consistency and routine in our life, and this need was not met in key situations, most notably by having to go to seven different schools before we graduated junior high.

We also never looked anyone in the eye and never addressed anyone by name, other than our parents and brothers.

Does any of this seem familiar to anyone reading?

We should also mention that neurological conditions (especially depression) run on both sides of our family. At least two of our grandparents (probably three) had depression; a great-aunt had bipolar; brother number 2 has Tourette Syndrome, and niece number 1 (daughter of brother number 1) has OCD.

It would seem to us that having this set of circumstances go unaddressed would make it likely that we would deal with the problem by compartmentalizing it. We believe that our being multiple makes this response even more likely.

Aurora13 is the system member who we believe shows autistic traits. Along with Charity, Rachel, and baby amanda, Aurora13 has been around since infancy. She is not to be confused with her older sister, Aurora17, who has been with us since the body was four. Ironically, Aurora17 is four years older than Aurora13.

We believe that in addition to absorbing emotions and trauma that were too much for Charity to handle, Aurora13 became the holder of any autistic traits that the system as a whole may have. Aurora13 rarely if ever speaks, and she has a history of traumatic sibling dynamics with Aurora17 and their four younger sisters. Their past is a very dark one. Altogether more than a dozen of our inside kids and a few of our teens rarely or never speak, but Aurora13 is clearly the one dealing with what we've described here.

Aside from the above, the last few years of our therapy process has centered around preparing our five adults to be more functional, so that we no longer need to burden our teens with running the system and handling daily routine. We already knew that the bigs' ability to become more functional was/is contingent on Charity's healing in particular, which in turn is dependent on her reclaiming trauma that she left to burden various kids and teens. Charity has been working hard, albeit slowly, to reclaim and process this trauma, and the other bigs are beginning to follow suit.

You may wonder what the bigs' individual and collective healing has to do with Aurora13. We've just come to realize that Charity has inadvertently taken on Aurora13's issues along with all of the trauma that she was supposed to reclaim. As a result, Charity has become barely functional at times, plagued by depression, hopelessness, and ongoing suicidal ideation. We have mechanisms in place to prevent ourselves from acting on this, but the feelings are always there on some level.

Today we began to realize that Charity's healing, Aurora13's well-being, and the system's welfare as a whole, is contingent upon Charity's returning Aurora13's issues to her, and for us as a group to make sure that Aurora13's needs are deliberately, consciously, and consistently addressed. The current entanglement between Charity and Aurora13 is like an integration gone terribly wrong, and it's a prime example of why we never want to integrate.

Well, that's as much as we can think of.  For now.

[later, after two people responded on a forum]

Actually, every thing you've said has been quite helpful, especially the part about being in that middle ground where our reality is obscured from the outside world, and perhaps misunderstood by people at times.  All we can do is find healthy ways to treat our symptoms even if we don't have a formal label for them. And know that our experience is valid, even if other people don't see it or accept it.

Aurora13 is feeling anxious now.  She wants help.  We have a good T.  Perhaps it's time to talk with our T about better meeting Aurora13's needs.