This is going to be long and hijack-like, and I appologize, but I’d appreciate an opinion from you guys. I’ve been wondering about this for a long time.
How important is it to get a diagnosis? Are there ways to signifigantly improve your lives through that?
The reason I ask is this: I come from a family of unusual people. I myself have always been described as strange (Sunspace, I had no idea other people didn’t think visually. Seriously. I don’t even understand how that would even be possible). My level of strangeness can be maintained, while in public, at “quirky”, in that I function well in society and manage to hide my truly bizzare traits from all but my nearest and dearest. Thankfully I’ve managed to find a small group of friends who love me anyway.
My little sister, however, is on the other side of the line, and I worry about her. She has few social skills, and no social preception. She doesn’t get facial expressions, or vocal inflection. You can make her cry with a joke, or laugh with an insult, because she can’t comprehend sarcasm. She insists on sealing (closing all windows & door, shutting drapes) any room she’s in. She has a fear of bathing or washing her hair. She is often ‘in her own world’, sitting in her room in the dark, listening to the same song over and over and over. Sometimes, when she’s alone (often at night) she makes noises to herself. She calls it ‘yodeling’, but it’s more like singing ‘ya-ya-ya-ya-ya’ over and over again. I asked her once and she told me it relaxes her. She hates leaving the house, and gets upset when my parents are out for dinner & dancing. She does not ever leave the confines of her ‘sealed’ room when on vacation. (Thankfully my parents have finally stopped forcing her to go along). New places scare her She has only just begun to learn a modicum of impulse control. She was a teenager before she stopped having regular tantrums.
She doesn’t read well, due to severe dyslexia, but she’s very smart and loves books on tape (or having them read to her). She’s an artist, and produces paintings/drawings/sculptures that are. . .I can’t really describe them. When you first look at them, they look strange and ‘not right’, but are at the same time deeply appealing. Like you want to keep staring at them until you figure them out. She’s a horseback rider and has this zen way with animals that I can’t even begin to explain. You bring an abused/tempermental/difficult horse (or a feral barn cat) into her stables, and by the end of the day it’ll be her best friend.
Her school classified her as ADD, and my parents are accepting of that-- despite the fact that she actually has concentration powers 10 times stronger than anyone I know. I said once that I thought maybe she had a ‘touch’ of autism. My mother insisted there was no such thing as slightly autistic. My parents are very opposed to any kind of psychiatrist or counseling. They had a very bad experience early on with Ritalin and have consequently written off the entire subject.
My sister is now 18. She’s a wonderful and facinating person, and it breaks my heart that no one sees that but me because they’re too turned off by her innapropriate social actions. She would give you the shirt off her back if you ever needed anything. But people are so goddamn judgemental. My mother insists that my sister is going through a ‘phase’ (she has always been like this-- the yodeling thing is from infancy. For a while when she was a little, she would only communicate via that noise. You figured what she wanted via tone & emphasis. She still does thing occasionally). I worry about her getting along in the adult world.
Does this seem to you (as it does to me) that this is more that just ADD? Could it be something like Asperger’s/HFA? Is there any point now that she’s an adult, or is the help available geared mostly to children?
