Answer Aspergers Vol 1: Diagnosis
or Suspicion. COPYRIGHT
Answer Asperger’s © 2011, Andrew
Bland. Smashwords Edition.
Smashwords License Notes: This
ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may
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respecting the hard work of this author. My sincere thanks for the
cover picture by Catalina Aguilera who kindly let me use the image.
Her website is www.iamcaty.com. Other images, to the best of my
knowledge are used here legally and effort has been made to comply
with copyright.
The obligatory disclaimer.
I
have had to learn this stuff myself because this book did not exist
for me. The books I read made me worse and depressed! I had to make
something new. Whilst I am very much the authority on my own
experience and that’s the perspective I have written from, it’s
the only one I have. So, for that reason, I’m obliged to say that I
am not a medical professional and this is not medical or legal
advice, it’s just personal opinion. Frankly, I hope it’s more
than that but I legally have to say this. Errors are my fault and if
you spot any, please let me know. Thank you for your interest in this
book – by the end of volume 3, you will know a huge amount of
information that makes life easier
Table of Contents
Introduction
Disclaimer
part 2
Part
1 - The ASD Brain
The
Triune Brain
The
Myth of 100% Genetic Determinism
Neuroplasticity
(Brain Re-adaptation)
The
Butterfly Effect of Infancy
The
Orbital Frontal Cortex (OFC)
Obsessions
and the Inability to Let Go
Expectations
Satisfaction
and Reward
Judgements
Social
Decision Making
Eye
Contact
The
Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC)
The
ACC and Sex
Self-Interest
The
Amygdala
Emotional
Filtering
Social
Pleasure, Pain and Reward
Theory
of Mind
Part
2 - Emotions
Emotional
Feeling v’s Logical Thinking
Bi-directional
Real-Time Theory of Mind A.K.A. Empathy
Emotionally
Frozen
Aspergers
or Toxic Shame?
Stuck-Emotion
Take
Responsibility for your Emotions
Part
3 – The World of Belief
Make
Believe
Beliefs
About Beliefs (“meta belief”)
The
Power of YOUR Beliefs
Belief
and the Brain
Sources
of belief
Belief
and BPD
Belief,
Childhood and all that stuff!
Limiting
beliefs v’s Creative Beliefs
Breaking
Beliefs Down.
Beliefs
Audit
Installing
Beliefs.
Part
4 - Self-Image, Self-Talk, Self-Acceptance and other self related
stuff
Self-Image
Self-Talk
Self-Acceptance.
Transcending
Self-Esteem
Self-Confidence
A
last word!
Introduction
“When solving a problem, dig at the roots instead of just hacking at the leaves”. - Anthony J D’Angelo
It’s taken me a long time to figure out all of the things that you’re about to read. It wasn’t easy for me but I want it to be easy for you. I want to save you the pain, the trouble and the effort I went through and convey information that I believe will be pivotal to your life. When I was diagnosed I was sat down with a councillor and she asked “so what areas do you need help?” I said, “I don’t know, I thought you were supposed to tell me!” I didn’t even know what ASD was and all I got told was a vague, unclear and ill-defined restatement of the symptoms because there is no disease, as such, of autism. All of this can make someone highly confused from being told of Aspergers without adequate information about what it really is.
The reason it is so confusing is that it is a symptomatic label, there are just unexplained symptoms manifested, and if a person displays enough of them they will receive the label. Most early reading mentions the term PDD NOS, pervasive development disorder not otherwise specified. Terrific! What does that even mean? It seems to imply that you can be affected in any and every possible way. There is nothing solid or specific enough to really understand. I couldn’t believe that there was no solid answer about what it was, what caused it and what to do about it. Without that stuff, it seems like a pointless negative label.
Then once you have a name, the subject is made even more complex by the fact that there is an entire continuum of labels related to autism all of which varies from person to person. The terms are broad and generic and there are no black and white answers, just a label. Once you have a label this can become the source of attention and feeling and just adds fuel to a fire. The very act of Aspergers diagnosis seemed pretty pointless to me. I’m sure diagnosis creates many limiting beliefs surround the words social, emotional, restricted and repetitive. None of which is a remotely helpful influence to your mental programming.
In order to move on from a problem, it first needs to be understood. Without a proper explanation of its biological basis, knowing a name isn’t inherently helpful and threatens a basic human need to understand yourself and to be understood by others - diagnosis can undermine both. One of the big reasons why is that most explanations don’t really go far beyond restating the symptoms, which doesn’t aid understanding. Without understanding you can solve nothing nor can you effectively move on. If you read a few books on the subject or read the clinical definition, you can create a big mental list of things that you can’t or don’t do or that you struggle with. Previously small issues just grow with attention and diagnosis can seem like a deeply unhelpful epiphany. How your see yourself is who you believe you will be, which in turn is how you will act. This fact can make you perpetuate a cycle positively or negatively.
I do not dismiss all therapy or treatments and I believe in many technological and dietary interventions, but my own experience in the UK was the above meeting which potentially involved years of therapy, tinkering with a myriad of external “symptoms” (AKA individualism) in one to one sessions. This sounded like many painful and time consuming months were to be spent discussing issues I didn’t even think existed or I could attend AA like groups with other people who were probably equally confused and in many cases dislike group social experiences.
If social beliefs are negative and emotions are all outside of awareness then many forms of therapy actually make people worse. In my opinion, the actual act of psychoanalysis, can, if taken too far, create neurosis and backfire on your self-image, your self-worth and your confidence. The resulting beliefs actually promote more of the behaviours which lead to initial label. So diagnosis is double edged sword, for some it opens the door to good treatments, for others who hate therapy, groups and talking to strangers it just creates problems and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that kick starts a domino effect of fear, anxiety, depression and regrettable decisions.
It can feel like the most sabotaging and limiting beliefs have been installed and diagnosis has a potentially negative confirmation effect on behaviour and can make things “worse”. It profoundly effects self-image beliefs and perpetuates itself without the right information. The ego has a hard time processing a diagnosis and without any answers it becomes just an unhelpful, depressive and sabotaging “epiphany”.
But the label sticks, you reassess everything in your life and wonder where in the vague terms symptoms end and identity begins. Everything about it seems unclear and ill-defined. Without that, then the whole subject seems futile and dehumanising. The only words that are used with any certainty are social, emotional and permanent. Nobody feels great when their ego is told that their individualism is actually symptoms of a “syndrome” and further, telling someone with a relatively high IQ that they are mentally disabled is naturally responded to with either defiance or depression. Neither of which are socially or emotionally helpful. Hopefully these three books will be socially and emotionally helpful.
Before I begin I want to discuss a potential trap. There is a seductive quality to books like this that appeals to your inner perfectionist (aka inner procrastinator) and after reading one, you feel great, you feel motivated, you have the information, you have the motivation and briefly experience some change and then suddenly it’s gone. So you decide that more information is required and that book was obviously not the answer and go back on amazon and buy another book. If you read enough self-help and very valid concepts such as to visualise success, take responsibility, set goals, think positively, manage your time, effectively prioritise and other self-help mantras you will eventually be perfect right?
This is of course absolutely false and paralysing, but it’s a beautiful delusion to fall into and is based on one simple belief. That you are not complete or okay as you are. This seems to be a subtle implication of reading a self-help book and goes against human vanity. Reject that implication outright now. At all times when reading this book I want you to keep in mind, you are already complete and be fully accepting of yourself as you are right now today. If you can’t do that now, then by the end of this book that will have changed. Although this book is about change, there is no “completion” of what you start learning. The degree to which this book brings about change will be from baby small steps and at all times in this process you are complete as you are.
It is written to be your guide to creative reinvention of some aspects of the self and for the useful embracement of the natural advantages that Aspergers provides. There is a marketing saying that “what you can’t fix you feature” and if you attempt to do otherwise, you deny yourself and the world of your gifts. This is just about reconnecting some beliefs that were working against that.
This is not a book to be passively just read and not acted upon. Nothing you read once is permanent and in order to create change you have to reinforce the behaviours with real life action and implementation. The inner thoughts influence the outer behaviour and the outer behaviour influences the inner thoughts. It’s a bi-directional partnership that this trilogy is an active guide to doing. This particular book addresses the inner side, it is a foundation of stability and peace that confidence and competence in socialising and dating and life are built on.
My aim is facilitation of a process not dictation and you only learn effectively when you process the information. I have not included summaries at the end of each chapter but after each chapter as I want you to write for 15-20 minutes about what that meant for you and ways to apply it. The best way to use it is to read and find all of the parts that resonate with you and make notes that are relevant to your interpretation. You are the authority on your experience and the therapeutic effects of writing itself has value
There are a few excises in this book. They seem at times lame and contemptible and it makes perfect sense to most people that they can just “kinda half think about them once” and if they understand the theory then that’s just as good. This intellectualising is the exact attitude I would have adopted myself but it is wrong. Sad as it is to say, you never understand anything by merely reading a book about it. Willingness is not enough, you must do and knowledge is also not enough, you must apply is a quote I once read somewhere. The exercises make you feel and think differently and we need to lay down the tracks of these different feelings and thoughts.
The exercises in this book are intended to retrain these thought processes and strengthen the flow of new and more useful networks. By using the brain differently than it has previously been used, old connections will be synapically pruned and allowed to fade away and new connections will form and develop in response to new stimuli and novel information. This functional reorganisation of the brains neural connections is what the exercises are about. These new neuro-pathways need to be used over and over until the highway is built. As everything we experiences either creates a new path or ret-reads an old one change is therefore a bi directional partnership with inner thoughts changing outer behaviour and new outer behaviours reinforcing new inner thoughts. This book is to show you the inner side, the following two books refer to the outer sides of social skills and dating. So please do the exercises and change your brain to change your life.
This book at times may sound simplistic. I know it sounds silly to state simple things sometimes but actually “getting” them can be a truly mind opening experience. I hope that at least a few times during this book that happens for you and you experience these “ah ha” moments whilst reading. There will be parts you disagree with and that is absolutely fine, but I would also encourage you to write about those too. I genuinely want to know what you think and you can email me your ideas, observations or anything to answeraspergers@gmail.com or http://www.answeraspergers.com
There are many books that are written to help people “cope” with problems. This is not one of them and this series is for those who do not want a band aid solution, those who want to address causes not symptoms. Many medical professionals believe the condition IS the symptoms that present. I don’t. If you want to focus on solutions not problems then this book will produce rapid changes. The reason its rapid is because it addresses the core of the issue and is not about trying to fix every problem that comes up only to have a new problem come up because the cause itself was never addressed (or even understood). This book can save you a great deal of time and effort and provided you stick with it and extract what applies to you.
This is not about easy answers, I don’t think there are any but I have made what I have learnt as painless as I can.
Volume 1 is by no means an easy read. I have tried to go back over the content to make it easier going but with limited success. It is my hope that the secondary rewards that come from this and the other volumes will be worth the discomfort and time investment.
Finally this book is too long. It was intended to be one single book but ran into three, each one is progressively easier to read and lighter in subject matter. The hardest journey is often the one that leads to truth, therefore this book is a heavy read and not really intended to be devoured in a few sittings. ASD really does not allow for shortcuts even though that would be very desirable. It is a book you can explore and come back to as you wish. I wanted this to be widely and inexpensively available and I hope you get value from this book and I sincerely thank you for your trust in buying it.
“The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking as we were at when we created them” – Albert Einstein
I’ve had to write myself what I wanted to know because I couldn’t find it anywhere. What I’ve written here is based on a belief; that knowing a little about the brain is essential to owning and using one properly. If ASD is of the brain then knowing how the brain works is essential and allows you to have some concept of what is, or isn’t actually happening. The world makes more sense when you know about your brain, without that an ASD diagnosis has no meaning. It’s just a confusing and self-reinforcing label that’s becomes hard to shake off.
Logically, if you want to learn and move forward, you have to understand. I wanted to know exactly why and in what way the brain behaves differently in people with autism and what that meant for day to day living. Without that, it’s easy to question the value of the diagnosis. In fact, for a person that likes solid facts and certainty the nebulous concept of ASD as it is currently written about is in itself, somewhat cruel. However the information I wanted to read post diagnosis didn’t exist. So I have made it myself from some lay persons research.
Have you ever read a proper hard science research paper? Some of them are relatively easy to digest, but others are written in a different language and require a deep understanding of the most complex thing in the known universe, the human brain. They speak of every aspect of massive networks associated with a single process and come from tiny samples. All the main points come with various exceptions and a need for more study. Aside from some of the limitations of the studies, actual brain scans often reveal almost no consistent findings between people with ASD and there are literally hundreds of areas for potential discussion. All of these areas are affected by metabolic, chemical, size, shape, activation factors and the whole thing is simply horrendous to understand. All of this makes understanding this most complex of labels very difficult indeed.
Hence, I wrote this book. If you want some answers and meaning, then that is where this is going. I’m going to save you the endless avenues of inquiry and then frustration. The aim in this part is to “get” the neurological basis and circuitry mechanisms underlying all Autism Spectrum Disorder. Notice I said ASD and not just Asperger’s. There is a reason for that. This is because the definition of Asperger’s and its distinctive features are currently hotly debated for the next diagnostic manual DSM V. It was introduced as a separate diagnostic category from autistic disorder in DSM-IV and ICD-10, but the current proposal is to merge Aspergers, High Functioning Autism and general Autism into one general category. There are strong arguments both ways, but either way, the observable characteristics or “phenotype” of AS and Autism do overlap substantially so the fundamental mechanisms are similar for both conditions, with language development and intelligence being the historic differential. It appears that the general view right now is that the basis is the same but the differences observed are better accounted for by differences in language, IQ, and severity, rather than features of the disorder.
Whatever the classification, most of the research in this area has directed towards Autism “proper”, so to get a real understanding of AS, you are forced to extrapolate from work done on people with Autism. During the early studies it is quite likely that many people with AS actually populated the early study samples used in Autism studies. They didn’t redo every bit of research and every study again. So developing an understanding of AS has largely been based on what was established about Autism, most of which contains seemingly contradictory patterns and often leave the reader with more questions than answers.
A diagnosis of Asperger’s (or Autism) is at the moment a horrendous and emotionally draining Q & A session, complicated by the lack of a standard screen and different diagnostic scales and checklists used. Brain scans will change diagnosis soon and the development of the brain can be recorded in the same way as height and weight are today. Research at Kings College London has been able to spot the tiny but subtle differences with MRI analysis of brain structure. Magnetic Resonance Imaging techniques can now trace blood and neuron (brain cell) flows within the brain and map the development of connections within the brain. These connections become the brain maps we use and continually refine in life. These maps developed very differently in ASD brains.
I can’t show you these maps physically, they are still being established, but we can see the regions that are different in an Autistic brain scan.
Figure 1:ASD Brain Scan
This picture sadly prints very badly in black and white. However the full colour version is available at the website. The coloured areas of this scan show the regions of the brain that are different in people with “full blown” Autism. The areas in red are thicker and larger and the areas in blue are smaller than in non-autistic brains. If this just looks like a walnut to you that is fine, all you need to notice is that there is a wide and scattered area involved and that most of the blue areas are at the front (left). This is part of the frontal lobe and contains key social and emotional networks.
These pictures may be pretty meaningless at this point, without a colour image they almost certainly will. It is not essential before carrying on that you understand that image or that you see it in colour. My preferences are visual and so I’m biased towards including pictures in this chapter because I believe you need to physically see it and visualise the actual issues of Aspergers and from there you can move on.
For me, it’s worse than useless to be given a label and have no one really tell you or show you what it is. This chapter is what I have learnt about how the brain works and my theory on what is actually the issue. I believe very strongly that through learning how the mind works, we can apply this knowledge and retrain the brain and reclaim more control over it. Your awareness of how your brain is functioning allows for greater control over any situation you find yourself in.
Although we often refer to our brains as a single, solid unit, this is not an accurate description of how it functions. Rather, our brains consist of a conglomerate of various sub-brains and sections, all interconnected. Dr. Paul D. MacLean, a prominent brain researcher, has developed a model of brain structure which he calls the "triune brain." In other words, humans have not one brain but three. Actually, even this is an oversimplification; but this model has the advantage of displaying our evolutionary heritage.
Dr Paul MacLean defines the brain as being three brains all interconnected, yet with their own distinct function:
-The innermost core and brain
stem called the reptilian brain or the “Basal Brain”.
-Around
that sits the mammalian brain or the limbic system.
-Surrounding
that is the Neocortex, divided into the primate brain (at the back)
and the frontal lobes.
The first two brains make up only a
small percentage of the total brain but punch far above their weight
when it comes to disrupting the larger primate brain and frontal
lobes. The reptilian brain the oldest part of the
brain, it’s basically the brain stem that everything sits on. It’s
the most basic, but no less important part of the brain. The
reptilian brain computes basic survival, it’s what you use when you
have a fight or flight response, it regulates your heart rate and
breathing, it reacts to the environment and computes primal instincts
basics short term needs, biological imperatives and self-indulgent
“me me me” type thinking. It
computers the “4 F’s of behaviour” fighting, fleeing,
feeding and errr...... reproduction.
This lower base part of the brain is about the most basic needs and competitive survival behaviours. The reptilian brain controls muscles, balance and autonomic functions. It computes fight or flight responses and it regulates your heart rate and breathing sensations at the same time. It functions much like the Freudian concept of “the id” it is rigid, obsessive, compulsive, ritualistic and paranoid but contains vital areas like the thalamus, which channels sensory information and the caudate, which is involved in progressive thoughts.
The mammal brain sits around this smaller brain and processes emotional responses through the limbic system which directs much of our behavior through emotional principles like “agreeable or disagreeable” and the avoidance of pain and the pursuit of pleasure (though those concepts often oppose each other in short and long term). The limbic system is largely part of the mammal brain but it actually extends across all three layers of the brain and processes emotions through various structures technically within each brain; the amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, thalamus and the sensory cortex.
The limbic system as shown in this picture is much more clear-cut than it is in reality, but essentially, the mammalian brain adds an emotional layer to the impulses of the r complex. Unlike reptiles the mammals care for their young and bond with them and show socially cooperative behaviours. The mammal brain or limbic system layers on top of the reptilian brain certain social and emotional behaviours that exist in any mammal, which naturally includes humans. This function is comparable to the “ego” it deals with dogma, rationalisations and emotions (fear, joy, rage, pleasure and pain etc). It is the primary source of emotion, attention and affective (emotionally powerful) memories. It helps determine valence, which is how you feel about things and salience, what’s worth paying attention to and provides a check on all our value judgements, having a final say on whether our higher brain has a "good" idea or not, whether it feels true and right. This lowly limbic system has a lot of power and influence and is heavily implicated in ASD.
The limbic system is the primary centre of emotion. It’s the limbic system that gives emotions their physiological nature and why emotions were first described as being a “visceral response.” The main components of the limbic system are the amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, thalamus and the sensory cortex.
The exact scope of the limbic system is open for some debate. The brain areas discussed in this part are, in my view all parts of the limbic system but confusingly are actually parts of different brains. The reason why this is so unclear is because the limbic system is not a structure, but a series of pathways that incorporates many diverse structures that are all involved in the control and expression of moods and emotions. Human beings are convinced and controlled by their emotions until the neocortex evolves to the point where we don’t use them anymore. In ASD, people are often attempting to arrive at that point way before everyone else does. This is neither right nor wrong, emotional functioning may seem like a limitation to modern living but it is always something to be aware of and ultimately down to the way we balance and use the neocortex.
Around the first two brains is the neocortex, which can be divided front to back and into left and right hemispheres. This is the famous left and right brain, the right brain is more spatial, abstract, musical and artistic, while the left brain more linear, rational, and verbal. The neocortex can also be divided down the middle into the frontal lobes and the primate brain at the back which actually makes up the bulk of the human brain. The higher cognitive functions that distinguish man from the animals are in the frontal lobes and the pre-frontal cortex, this is why the primate forehead slopes backwards, unlike in humans.
The frontal lobes are the most advanced part of your brain and computes uniquely human concepts such as, creativity, invention, imagination and reason. It notices complex patters, cause and effect, insights and conclusions we can draw from the environment, it is active, adaptive and it is consulted in behaviour but often does not really drive it. The frontal lobes are why we humans have populated the entire globe, while sadly our primate relatives are in a shrinking rain forest despite nearly identical DNA. The frontal lobes are responsible for our intelligence and the size and shape of the frontal lobe, the blood and chemical activity the gray and white matter volumes and the glucose metabolic rate all influence how we use our frontal lobes.
I’d love to tell you that it’s always the frontal lobes that you should use and that the primate brain is entirely irrelevant, unfortunately that is completely untrue. The human race will race its apogee when we eventually start to utilise the frontal lobes much more, but currently, we are not in that place. Today functioning and success requires the alignment of all these brain areas and an awareness of which one is currently being used by yourself and others.
Despite the often super high IQ that may be present in ASD, in social situations there is an under activity in the frontal lobe due to various reasons but which include lower amygdala involvement. The regions can work fine and be active and alert in some situations where there is interest. A brief period of reorganisation to incorporate emotional processing is enough to align the frontal lobes with the lower emotional brain instead of opposing them. Executive functions such as planning, self-regulating are often disrupted in ASD executive function is the job of the frontal lobes but that does not exclude the involvement of the lower brains which are vital for social situations and emotional awareness.
The frontal lobes provide guidance and coordination to the other brains. It’s the frontal lobes that consider the impulsive thoughts of the hippocampus and provides the ability to think twice about a decision and orchestrate behaviour as desired. The frontal lobes are essential for the highest human functions and essential for bringing the emotions and reflex of the lower brains into a generally resourceful and balanced positive state of mind. Both the primate brain and the frontal lobes have vast interconnections with the lower brains, so brain functions are never purely limbic or cortical but a mixture of both. The implication of this model is that each one operates separately, but it is more accurate to say that each more recent layer augments the capacity of the layer below it. And each newer layer has some ability to override and transforms the overall character and behaviour of the system as a whole and vice versa.
The development of the frontal lobes is what separates us from the primates, but we are not so separate from the primates yet that these lower brains can be ignored and opposed, they need to be aligned and respected. Social and emotional intelligence are cross brain functions. They rely on inputs from the lower emotional areas of the bran and the areas involved in processing emotions - the Amygdala, the anterior cingingulate cortex and the orbital frontal cortex form what is known as the “social brain”.
The social brain hypothesis proposes that parts of the human neo-cortex have evolved to improve survival in dynamic groups and therefore to process social information. This enables successful mating, raising children, relationships, communication and empathy – everything social and emotional intelligence is about. This functioning requires the integration of the lower and the higher brain. It is the interplay between emotions and thinking that helps us in the decision making process.
Damage to the brains emotion centre the amygdala in monkeys robs them of their ability to interpret the social world around them. They do not engage in social interactions but become very aware and attentive to the other monkeys in the cage. The reduced amygdala involvement means the monkey has a hard time processing social emotions and their social experience is one of confusion and fear. Understanding other people ultimately requires emotional processing.
Under connectivity in ASD brains to this emotional centre reduces coordination and integration of emotions within the social brain. If you have no regard for ego’s and emotions then this is down to the connectivity and activity of these three areas. What this section is for is to try to increase their functioning within your own (and my own) awareness. This is the only way that I know to open the door to experience necessary to alter the amygdala, the anterior cingulated cortex and the orbitofrontal cortex.
Damage to any one of these areas undermines the ability to make even minor decisions or respond appropriately to negative events and above all to learn the correct method for the future. Learning social behaviours requires the processing of emotion. We really are quite a long way from being frontal lobe dominated and so almost everything has emotional connotations. Memories, situations and events are encoded in associative/emotional learning. Emotional similarities are in constant use and mediated by these three regions constantly in daily life. We remember the feeling as much as the event and for experience to be altered emotional feedback is a vital component. If emotions are not used in social decision making then social feedback is missing the most relevant and fundamental component.
The emotional system can act entirely independently to the neo cortex. Emotional reactions and emotional memories can be formed without any conscious, cognitive participation at all and creates emotional impressions and memories without our awareness. Therefore it is the limbic system ultimately runs the show, but it does not know what show it is running. It needs the neocortex to provide the detail regarding what is best to do at each micro-moment. Yet it is only able to give advice and it’s the limbic system that must take that advice, even when it does not understand it. Unhappiness and incongruence result from conflicts between these brains. social cognition and social functioning, mainly through its involvement in emotional processing. Three areas of the brain (the amygdala, anterior cingulated cortex, and orbitofrontal cortex) are involved in processing emotions.
The lower brains are often the antithesis of the frontal lobes. However, they are nevertheless both highly relevant to daily life and the ability to alternate between the two, as appropriate, is what 2011 currently requires. The ASD tendency is to “be in” either brain to a too large degree, either overwhelmed by emotion or thoroughly disengaged with emotion in favour of more solid concepts. For me it was the frontal lobes, instead of using the frontal lobes to oversee the functions of the lower brain, it was used to reject them both in myself and others and created a very moral dominated personality that conflicted with the reality of how other people work. Social and emotional behaviours that don’t engage all levels of the brain tend not to be generally ineffective. They will be specific exceptions of course but broadly, that is pretty much field tested as being true.
What this section is for, is the idea that by understanding how and in what way the ASD brain is different, you can, through your frontal lobes, align the emotions and sensations from the mammal brain and the conditioned reflexes of the reptilian brain. This can increase happiness and create a very balanced and resourceful state of mind. You should always be aware of how these three brains are interacting with each other, both in yourself and in other people around you.
I’m advocating just being aware of “each brain” and understanding what some key areas are up to when you experience certain things. The third volume really gets into that but this first part of this volume is just to become aware of what is not happening or what is happening too much. From here you can actually cultivate new habits and consciously manage and oversee their functions for the most productive outcome for you and with other people. This may sound like a fanciful self-help mantra, I’m worried that it does, but it is actually a fact that is supported by science and in my opinion is the greatest type of engineering there is, it is you changing you.
The Myth of 100% Genetic Determinism.
“The data shows that in mammals each individual gene uses multiple different mechanisms to produce different forms of protein. In a sense, each gene is actually multiple different genes”. – David Hume 18th century Scottish philosopher.
Before we get into the nuts and bolts of this section, there is a hugely depressing widespread belief that made me believe the ASD label meant something other than it actually did. This belief needs to be quickly dispelled at the outset – that “ASD is genetic and your genes control your life, therefore there is nothing you can do.” The fog and sadness I buried myself into post diagnosis had this erroneous limiting belief at its core; that genes control you and not the other way around. In truth, it’s not all about excessive “blaming or praising your genes” it’s actually a little of both. Your genes control aspects of you and you control aspects of your genes.
Belief is probably the most powerful force within you. When you believe something as limiting as genetic determinism then ASD leads you to believe either you are a either a victim of heredity, or a Dr Manhattan like prototype for a superior human being one step ahead of evolution. Neither of these beliefs is correct nor will they help you socially. I fell into the former category. I believed genetics was destiny and that social elements of chromosome 7 were just missing. This brought forward feelings of powerlessness, of resignation and helplessness. It feels out of your control and it didn’t take long for my thoughts about it to turn quite negative and depressing.
At the root of this depression was the belief that genes determine pretty much everything about you. That they determined habits and behaviours and that was something that I had zero control over. Previously, I thought DNA was destiny. It was an indelible code that we and our children had to live by. This limiting (and for me depressing) belief is false.
Actually, most of the prevailing beliefs about concepts like genetics, behaviours, talents and IQ are just plain wrong. DNA is not destiny, DNA reacts to you and you react to DNA. Further DNA change does not take many generations and millions of years and DNA sequences do not encode a fixed blueprint for heritable condition such as ASD. It is changeable. The patterns of gene expression are governed by the cellular material — the epigenome — that sits on top of the genome, just outside it (hence the prefix epi-, which means above).
Genes, which are stretches of DNA that designate the construction of one protein, are not self-regulating and so having "ASD genes”, does not at all mean you're doomed to suffer from there expression. Genes are just blueprints and these blueprints can have their expression or suppression controlled by their environment. The true secret to self-mastery does not lie within your DNA, but rather within the mechanisms of the cell membrane operating in response to environmental signals picked up by the membrane’s receptors that control the expression of the genes inside. In other words, by what is known as Epigentics. This is where I believe ASD is both created and potentially treated.
Many of our beliefs on genetics and change come from Darwinism, which tells us that evolutionary changes take place over many generations and through millions of years of natural selection. This was a great leap in understanding and an undeniably huge contribution, but does not represent the full picture and is increasingly looking incomplete. The effects of nurture (environment) on nature (genes) occur quickly (but more subtly than sprouting legs) and leave an imprint on the genes passed onto children in a single generation. This, more fluid view of genetics, was first proposed long before Charles Darwin by a man called Jean-Baptiste Lamarck.
Lamark believed that animals acquired certain traits during their lifetimes because of their environment and choices. In contrast, Darwin argued that evolution works, very slowly, through cold, impartial selection. For example, Lamarckian thinking argues that giraffes acquired their long necks because their recent ancestors had stretched to reach the high-up, nutrient-rich leaves. By Darwinist thinking, giraffes got their long necks over millennia because genes for long necks had, very slowly, gained advantage.
Darwinists have long disparaged Lamark’s work and because Darwin was the better scientist, he created more belief and won the argument. Lamarckian evolution was widely discredited, early epigenetic theory was contentious and major journals rejected what are now considered seminal papers. This early work is now being reconsidered and epigenetics is proving that the spoils of victory do not always accrue to the right side of an argument. In fact, they quite often don’t. Within most fields of research there are great pioneers whose work passes through the stages of truth; ridicule, opposition and finally begrudged acceptance. It’s taken literally hundreds of years for this to happen, but the field of epigenetics finally proves his ideas were wrongly dismissed.
The mention of Darwin immediately brings forward thoughts of evolution. Epigentics is actually not about evolution, epigenetics is the study of changes in gene activity that do not involve alterations to the genetic code but still get passed down to at least one successive generation. Epigenetics is potentially permanent but only if the expression is maintained long term, in itself it does not change DNA whereas evolution does. Epigenetics does not refer to underlying DNA sequences but rather exists as another level that sits on top of regulating genetic expression but not the basic structure of DNA. Only evolution causes actual permanent genetic change but there is a general mechanism for transmitting information about the ancestral environment down the line (hence the rapidly increasing rates of ASD).
Epigenetic changes represent a biological response to an environmental stress factor. This response creates epigenetic tweaks that can be inherited through generations. But if you remove the environmental stressor, then the epigenetic tweak will eventually fade and the DNA code will, over time, revert back to its original programming. For example, epigenetic inheritance can be seen in Flies exposed to a drug that caused them to develop unusual changes on their eyes. These changes lasted through a dozen generations yet no DNA change occurred. This shortened timetable would mean that genes themselves wouldn't have had enough years to change.
Even though epigenetic inheritance does not necessarily last forever, it is still hugely powerful. Even mental faculties like memory can be improved from one generation to the next via epigenetic inheritance. Mice exposed to environments rich with stimulus showed significant improvements in what is called long-term potentiation (LTP), a form of neural transmission that is key to memory formation. Amazingly their offspring also showed the same improvements despite the environmental stimulus being withdrawn.
This means that parent’s experiences and behaviours can potentially change the traits they pass onto their children. Habits and choices can initiate a biological chain of events that potentially lead to adverse effects for your children. Habits such as poor nutrition, no exercise, smoking, drinking or doing drugs, not only ruin your short-term memory, make you fat and or dead but also change the epigenetic marks on your DNA. This can predispose your children before they are even conceived — to disease and early death. Lifestyle choices you make (or emotional and belief driven compulsion) not only adversely alter your own genetic expressions and suppression but potentially do the same for your children.
The fact that wildly complex biological and psychological processes can be altered from one generation to the next via epigenetics has been proven. For example, the sons of men who smoke in pre-puberty will be at higher risk for obesity and other health problems well into adulthood. Before boys reach puberty the DNA they potentially pass on fathering children is genetically isolated because they cannot yet form sperm, unlike girls who are born with all their eggs. When sperm is first starting to form genes in the Y chromosome are particularly vulnerable to the imprinting of epigenetic marks. Thus making any son the young smoker produces particularly likely to carry the resultant epigenetic mark from an epigenetic exposure of the worst kind.
There is no doubt there is a strong genetic component and dominant inheritance pattern to ASD. Genome-wide scans of parents and children show that the genetic basis of ASD is not solely a matter of heredity. Many people with ASD are born to parents with no previous genetic predisposition to autism, suggesting that the cases are caused by environmental factors. Weather its nature or nurture it doesn’t really matter, all of the underlying genetic basis is influenced by epigentics. Half of all ASD is solely down to spontaneous mutations, duplications or deletions — those that arise for the first time in an individual, rather than being inherited traits.
Many experts believe that ASD is solely genetic disorder. They point to the shank3 gene, chromosome 7 (the social chromosome?) and the hundreds of different sites within the genome contribute to a predisposition towards ASD. All of these factors create a disposition towards ASD but do not cause it. Whatever genes you have it is genetic expression that causes the observable characteristics and therefore ASD is not really genetic it is epigenetic. Weather your ASD or suspected ASD is a matter of heredity or spontaneity, it does not really matter. The answer to both is the same, gene expression is ultimately a matter of epigentics and that so in a sense the cause of ASD symptoms is also the cure for ASD symptoms.
It’s epigenetics that allows this environmental information—which includes diet, toxic exposures, as well as thoughts and emotions, and more – to throw a genetic switch and turn on or off ASD’s genetics. It is environmental factors that mediate the expression of these traits and therefore the actual manifestation of ASD symptoms. This explains how people one identical twin can develop a condition even though the other is fine. Clearly their genes are the same but the patterns of expression have clearly been tweaked. It is environment that influences the expression of genes, turning on and off genes because of a wide range of environmental factors.
Crucially, for ASD it is exposure to environmental toxins and the content of modern diets that lead to these reversible epigenetic changes. There are multiple metabolic differences observed in ASD and these are very inconsistent substantially affect glucose metabolism which affects brain functioning. Diet and metabolic issues seen in ASD are down to gene expression and that in part can be down to epigenetic processes in the body that affect the mind.
ASD genes may stack the deck toward a tendency but what causes the expression, is epigentics. Specifically, an epigenetic process called DNA methylation may be key. Postnatal brains show stimulus-induced methylation and it only the addition of a methyl group to change an epigenome and thus the expressed characteristics. A methyl group is a basic unit in organic chemistry: one carbon atom attached to three hydrogen atoms. When a methyl group attaches to a specific spot on a gene — a process called DNA methylation — it can change the gene's expression, turning it off or on, making it whisper or making it shout. In ASD this process expresses itself on many of genes which encode brain function. Some of this is actually desirable diversity that exists to drive the human race forward, certain kinds of thinking and disciplines such as science and many creative arts require these differences in the brain in order to be great at them. Where this is less desirable is with regard to social gene suppression.
DNA methylation has been show to repress “social gene” expression by recruiting MBD (methyl-CpG binding proteins) to bind the DNA and block the binding of activator proteins. Mice bread without MBD1, a key regulatory protein, were reported to show less social interest, anxiety, depression and abnormal serotonin activity. In short DNA methylation created some “Aspie mice”.
These processes have been occurring since before you were even born. The conditions in the womb create epigenetic marks that tell your genes to switch on or off, to speak loudly or whisper. It is through epigenetic marks that environmental factors like diet, stress, emotional wellbeing and prenatal nutrition can make an imprint on genes that is passed from one generation to the next.
For example one study showed this effect quite clearly. Mice that carried a gene that gave them yellow coats, a propensity for obesity and diabetes we split into two groups. One group of these pregnant mice were fed folic acid and vitamin B12 and another group of genetically identical mice were fed a diet lacking the same prenatal nutrition. The in utero nutrition altered the expression of genes but not the DNA and the nourished mothers produced brown offspring that were normal weight and not prone to diabetes.
Epigentics starts at minus nine months. Like any other living creatures, our own development in the womb and during infancy is moulded by our environment, in particular the nutrition we receive. Iodine, gluten, mercury are all suspects for ASD heritability. If crucial genes are not switched on during foetal development as they should be, that can change the structure and function of an unborn baby. The unborn baby is nourished by its mother's body. But that does not just mean what its mother eats each day. That would be far too dangerous a strategy. What she eats during pregnancy does matter. But the baby's development depends more on the food stored in her body and on the way her body handles food, which is the product of her lifetime nutrition. This will decide her baby's health in later life.
The in-utero effects of epigentics have been shown in studies on the effects of stress on pregnancy. Women with stressful pregnancies have shown that a mother’s stress can spread to her baby in the womb and causes a lasting effect. PTSD in the mother is also linked to an increased risk of premature birth which is nature’s way of trying to protect the baby from stress. In the womb, a mother’s high stress exposure can alter the unborn baby’s receptor (the glucocorticoid receptor if you’re interested) for stress making that baby more sensitive to throughout their life. This lower ability to handle life’s stress also links to increased risks of suffering vulnerability towards mental and behavioural challenges in later life. Even before birth, epigentics has made the child more sensitised to stress, meaning they react to stress quicker both mentally and hormonally making them more prone to addiction by being more impulsive and reactive and also making emotional regulation more difficult. Our early development in the womb sets up our constitution, how vulnerable we are to negative things that we encounter and how we will cope with them for the rest of our lives. This applies physically and mentally.
Epigentic changes were once thought to be permanent but studies now indicate that they can be dynamically regulated. This means ASD is entirely REVERSABLE. Epigenetic processes are constant, always turning genes on and off, however I do believe there are three key times for epigenetic, in utero, infancy and adolescence, with changes at each stage layering upon each other, this is why many people reach the diagnostic threshold during their teens.
Puberty is one of the peak periods for epigenetic changes, especially in boys. Boys are currently four times more likely to have ASD than girls and so this series does have a male bias throughout. This is because girls with ASD have many more spontaneous duplications or deletions than boys, suggesting a higher threshold for the manifestation of ASD in girls. It’s my belief that it is actually epigentic shifts acquired through puberty that alter the patterns of expression and contribute to this difference.
Genes in the brain are malleable, turning on or off in response to internal and external cues. While genetic variation influences brain function and social behaviour, social information also alters gene expression in the brain to influence behaviour. This creates a two way dynamic between behaviour and gene expression. This is why I believe boys get more ASD than girls, the inherited genetic component is the same but much of male behaviour is typically ASD anyway and so girls will have levels of genomic changes than boys for ASD to be diagnosed. Men do have lower emotional intelligence, they are more logical than emotional and they do like solitude. This is very atypical for girls, but to some degree, pretty normal for boys. All of these typically male behaviours give boys more exposure-sensitive periods than girls and cause the underlying genes to become over-expressed.
There is a dynamic relationship between genes and behaviour, Thanks to the newly sequenced genomes of several social animals, including honey bees and zebra finches, and new technologies such as microarrays (which allow researchers to glimpse the activity of thousands of genes at a time) neuroscientists are gradually coming to understand that behaviour is not necessarily etched in the DNA. Maybe all possible types of behaviour are etched in the DNA. What part of that DNA is expressed is a result of the environment. This means that it is possible to get to have the personality you want, the life you want and that there is potential that can be harnessed to become who it is that you want to be. However you've probably got to move away from the equilibrium personality-environment you're currently at, because in social interactions the environment responds to your behaviour and therefore it feeds off of you like you feed off of it.
Today implications and potential for epigentics is pretty staggering but mapping what all the epigenetic marks are will take years and a lot of money. So far we have mapped only a tiny portion of the epigenomes of two cell types (an embryonic stem cell and another basic cell called a fibroblast). There are over 210 cell types in the human body and each is likely to have a different epigenome. We are currently a long way from understanding fully how and when epigenetic processes change genes.
The Human Genome Project found that we carry around 25,000 genes, each of these genes can be influenced by epigentics and expressed in more than 30,000 different variations. Therefore we have an astounding amount of leeway in modifying the expression of our genetic makeup. How these factors how they work in concert creates the incredible variability that The Human Epigenome Project will eventually map out.
In the future manipulation of epigentics will be an increasingly exact science to treat illness simply by making desirable changes to gene expression. To reiterate this new belief, what this all means is that epigenetics places you in a position of power, for better or worse epigentics trumps genetics. We have a larger degree of power over our genes than passively being controlled by your genetic makeup. That belief can be used to gain control over your own belief system and move out of victimhood into mastery.
Essentially, that is what I’m trying to do in these books, I’m just jumping to gun because, I believe this is possible without epigenetic drugs and waiting for these drugs is not necessary when diet itself can be considered the same. Saying “in the future” is simply no today. It is possible today with the flick of a biochemical switch and tell ASD genes to lie dormant and hence my cheesy title “Answer Aspergers.” ASD can be answered. Diagnosis does not mean the brain is missing the social parts. It is possible to alter gene expression in genes that affect brain function and the activity of connections between nerve cells. Further, it is also possible to make substantial structural changes to the brain through what is known as Neuroplasticity.
Neuroplasticity (Brain Re-adaptation).
“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” – Oliver Wendell Homes (Physician, Poet, Writer, Humorist and Professor at Harvard, 1809 – 1894)
“Just as iron rusts from disuse, even so does inaction spoil the intellect.” - Leonardo Da Vinci (Painter, Sculptor, Architect and Engineer, 1452 – 1519)
Reading about differences between the ASD brain and the NT brain brings up another widespread limiting belief. That brain anatomy is fixed. Popular belief is that the brain is a lot like a computer. That is it an intricate machine with separate parts performing specialised functions. I use the computer analogy myself sometimes, they do both process information along circuits, they both have hardware (genetics) that’s alterable (eipgentics) and types of software like emotions and beliefs, but beyond that the analogy the analogy falls down quite often.
This nearly 500 year old metaphor of the brain being a somewhat mechanical structure has some merits and uses, but it crucially gets overextended when you consider the brains innate ability to change and grow. Today’s computers can’t. Like the popular belief about genes, most people think the brain is largely static and none changing, that it was hardwired in function and in form, as a result genetic and environmental factors I had no control or influence over. Therefore whatever the differences in my brain function and development were indelible and lifelong. I was just stuck with it and there was nothing I could do about it.
This was another profoundly limiting and depressing belief for me and it was utterly wrong. The mental abilities we possess are highly changeable, even beyond childhood. The brain can reorganise itself and alter the way it distributes processing loads across brain regions. It’s capable of rerouting and substituting aspects of how it works, altering connections, altering both genetic expression and structurally so behaviours and even abilities change.