Autism Spectrum Disorder-- A journey from alienation to attachment

Back from the Abyss: Psychiatry in Stories

Craig Heacock MD

Psychiatry, Bipolar, Suicide, Depression, Ketamine, Psychotherapy, Science, Psychedelics, Health & Fitness, Addiction, Medicine, Psychology, Mental Health

4.8 • 452 Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2022

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Anne grew up always feeling on the outside-- outside her family, her peers, her species. She knew something was "wrong", but a diagnosis would not arrive until she was well into adulthood. Meanwhile she became an expert in studying the ways of people, of "operating in manual", consciously and methodically using the lessons she had learned to know what to do in social situations and how to pass as "normal". Unlike so many others with ASD, Anne was able to marry and have two children and even d...

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Back from the Abyss. I'm Dr. Craig Ecock.
0:17.3	The idea for today's episode came from last season's listeners' poll, and a number of you wanted to hear more about autism and autism spectrum disorder, so here it is.
0:27.6	Today, I talked with my patient Anne, who I started seeing earlier this year, but almost didn't make it to see me, ironically due to the interpersonal challenges
0:39.4	of having autism spectrum disorder. My assistant Lisa had called me this spring, saying that she was
0:45.2	trying to schedule someone named Anne, but she was having a lot of problems with her. Lisa told me that
0:50.2	she didn't seem to be connecting, that she wasn't sure what the problem was, that Anne
0:54.9	was really rigid and kind of hard to deal with. So my initial thought was to tell Lisa, to tell this
1:00.9	new and potentially problematic patient that I was full. But for some reason I had this feeling that
1:06.9	maybe I should reach out to Anne directly. So I told Lisa I would call Anne and schedule her
1:11.1	myself. And when I spoke with Anne, she was able to open up about her frustration with the scheduling
1:16.5	process and the fact that she was in a state of total overwhelm. So then I quickly softened and
1:23.2	made sure that she could get in as soon as possible. Like so many diagnoses in psychiatry, autism, which is now called autism spectrum disorder,
1:33.3	encompasses a huge range of symptomology and functioning.
1:37.3	On one end, people with this diagnosis are typically nonverbal,
1:41.3	needing guardians throughout their lives, unable to work, and extremely unlikely to marry
1:46.5	or have children. And on the other end of the autistic spectrum, and what used to be called
1:51.5	Asperger's or high-functioning autism, we find people like Anne, who can be highly verbal
1:57.0	and intelligent, insightful, and may desire and achieve long-term relationships.
2:03.4	Autism or Autism Spectrum Disorder, ASD, refers to a broad range of conditions characterized
2:10.0	by challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech, and nonverbal communication.
2:17.2	It appears to have a genetic basis, as well as a correlation with older fathers,
2:22.3	presumably due to problems with faulty sperm production.
	...

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