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Guest blogger Hannah Belcher shares her thoughts on being (and studying) female and autistic

3/24/2016

6 Comments

 
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I lived for 23 years with no idea of the condition I had in my brain. That condition was Asperger’s Syndrome. I battled through my life with a number of separate psychiatric labels, each representing only small parts of my difficulties: Generalised Anxiety Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder, Depression... you get the gist. To be given the label of Asperger’s eased my inner conflict massively; I finally had an umbrella term where all these difficulties could make sense.

It is fair to say that my ‘special interests’ are centred more on people than things. One of the ways I have learnt to cope with my impairments is to monitor others around me, and learn how to ‘fit in’ through imitation. As I have gotten older this has moved into the more complex realm of Psychology, and understanding why people behave the way they do. I figured people are no different really to learning how to use a computer; we all have inputs and outputs. I tackle my own thoughts, feelings and behaviours with the same sort of obsessive rigour as scientists trying to find a particular vaccine in the midst of a pandemic, which is how I ended up doing a PhD studying autism in females.

I wanted to know if I was alone, why it took me so long to get a diagnosis, and how I had managed to adapt so well socially despite my impairments. What I have learnt so far is that there are hundreds of females out there in the same position as me, all wonderfully unique and kind human beings with bucket loads of empathy; not what the media teaches us autistic individuals look like! It can be tiring being so personally invested in the research that I am doing, it feels like I cannot get away from autism; at work, at home, it is present in everything I do and think. It also requires a certain amount of stepping back and objectivity, a skill I am perhaps yet to master fully. The condition lends itself to quite an egocentric perspective, so I am having to consciously think ‘can I really speak for everyone here?’ and learn about the different experiences other people with autism have had.

Whilst the majority of feedback I have received from the work has been positive, it appears you cannot become too big on the internet before trolls start attacking you, which has been the hardest hurdle to face (including all the research ethics forms I have had to fill in!). Being told by people who do not know you and have only read an article that you are a fraud and cannot possibly have the condition hurts, especially when you came to the club quite late and have lived with those doubts all your life. If the research was not so personal to me then perhaps I would be able to take these knocks on the chin, but that is the nature of the beast.

Overall doing my PhD on my own condition has opened up many doors for me, in understanding myself and those around me. From this work I created my own blog (www.aspertypical.com) and a group specially dedicated to women on the spectrum.  I think it is vital that more research on autism is led by autistic individuals, as challenging as it may be for us to conduct I think that personal perspective within the research is paramount to understanding the condition.

Hannah Belcher
PhD Student / Research Assistant / Associate Lecturer
Grad Soc Digital Marketer (2014 - present)  
Anglia Ruskin University,
Faculty of Science and Technology, Psychology Dept.
Research Gate Profile / Linked In Profile
Author of www.aspertypical.com
 

6 Comments
Jerry
3/25/2016 07:15:26 am

I'm a male but I related to much of your article. I was diagnosis with autism (and later Asperger's) when I was 4 but almost wasn't because I showed lots of empathy. I was considering psychology since I'm highly interested in observing other people's behaviors and myself for patterns. But I didn't since I'm a more liberal arts guy; I now just observe people to write interesting characters :P.

I've had people press if I actually have Asperger's, since I'm so well behaved and attentive. It pretty much dismisses all the hard work done by me and people who cared about me through the years. But when you don't hear many stories similar to yours you do start to question.

I wish you the best on your research and your blog.

Reply
mark kent
7/29/2018 11:21:22 pm

i have aspergers and m.e.i take part in a lot lot research

my blog.http;//mark-kent.webs.com

Reply
EllieS
5/22/2019 01:02:29 pm

I don't even know where to start, having just been diagnosed with autism at the age of 37 and having battled mental health labels including borderline personality disorder for which I was treated 2 years unsuccessfully only to make my autism and depression immensely worse. If it weren't for other people with autism who keep spotting me in the crowd and befriending me to show me that I am like them, I would still be thinking that I have a personality disorder even through I never fulfilled the diagnostic criteria. Psychiatrists don't understand autism in females and diagnose personality disorders without even going properly through diagnostic criteria. I thought to myself for a long time, that I seem to be very autistic and nothing like a person with a personality disorder but I didn't know if this was right as my mental health care team did not identify it. A research article comparing borderline personality disorder with autism and the chance of misdiagnosis in females, combined with the failure of my mental health team to lift me out of my depression, made me seek a formal diagnosis which confirmed autism and no signs of a personality disorder. The assessing psychiatrist explained how hard it is to identify it and the level of training necessary. He mentioned that he would himself have diagnosed me with a personality disorder prior to his autism training because he wouldn't have known better. It is not an experience I wish to anyone but at least I have turned a page now and can finally start to understand myself better despite all I've been put through by the mental health professionals involved in my care.

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Meredith link
11/23/2020 05:24:19 pm

Appreciiate your blog post

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Borderline Personality Disorder link
7/17/2022 04:34:10 pm

Totally agree with your piece, very insightful thank you for sharing this.
Borderline Personality disorder is something that's really hard to tell and with your guide I think others will be educated it will somehow help them out

Reply
Orland Park Solar Panels link
9/7/2022 05:03:05 pm

This was great to read thank you

Reply



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