Let's taxonomise. We can firstly classify by functionality. Low-functionality is fairly well understood, as it's been the subject of almost all the study over the last hundred years. However, the limits to that are the scope of the individual subject, which are almost by definition somewhat limited.
Almost everyone capable of commenting and acting in self-advocacy is equally by definition high-functioning. The classification's important, as it allows us to dispense with the Does He Take Sugar imbecility nonsense. We have carers as reference mentors, a double-check on our own subjectivity.
This then leads to masking, trying to pass as normal, although it's not always possible, as it's essentially false, and so bound to come undone. There's a secondary consequence to the ND, called Transfer in the acting profession (I come from a school with a considerable reputation in the sector, as it was created by Shakespeare's impresario and founded the NYT movement: my Stage Manager competence is recognised by London's Southbank), when we allow the more attractive traits in the mask to become our own: the classic example is Sir Anthony Hopkins' relationship with Martha Stewart, broken because she kept seeing traits of Hannibal Lector in him. I've been silent because my own life turned out to be a complete and utter mask, as I'd been denied the knowledge of my true genius in childhood. It's a fallacy of psychiatry, hoping the subject can keep some kind of social life, and the result, the increasing anger commented on in these pages, stems from the reintegration of two personae into one, meaning the false parts amounting to one had to die. That caused grief, and the first stage of grief is anger: it was justified by the ostracism I, like almost all NDs, suffered from childhood. Sir Anthony, in passing, was diagnosed with Aspergers in later life.
This demonstrates the prejudice shown in the profession, the NHS sets a timer to interviews which presumes NT normalcy. I think we actually need specialist GPs with experience in NeuroDiversity. However, that's a unicorn, they don't exist, because nobody's studied high-functionality as a whole. I'm gifted and probably a genius, which contrary to the Profession's definition are two different, but possibly related things. They term giftedness as a childhood trait they can hopefully quash. My giftedness is biblical, I'm a seer medium, termed hyperperception by the shrinks, and also have Master-level Reiki, a combination of the inherent human healer ability, boosted by the numinous and a diplomat's long-distance empathy (a subset of ESP). It's all part of transception, a map of Maslow's transpersonal into the subclassification of perception, this being of the intangible, running from the empathic through 3rd-sector medicine into the numinous.
You'll notice I'm not waiting for Godot, we need to ask and recruit. Our rights are so grotesquely abused we really need an active campaign to speak for the ND community. I've recently discussed this with Margot, as we should be helping more than just ASD, and I think it'll need a site redesign to cope with the open-ended nature of "everything not neurotypical". Perhaps that's the first stage, building medical knowledge.
