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4s and the Autism Spectrum

[Enneagram Type 4] 
23K views 26 replies 17 participants last post by  ReadingBeaver 
#1 ·
I've noticed that there a quite a few 4s here who are on the spectrum. I would never have guessed that, I don't know why. Maybe because I see Aspies as less emotional?

My son has Asperger's, and i struggle to understand him sometimes. Talking about anything emotional (and just talking in general, he has speech issues) is very difficult for him, or even conveying it through writing or drawing. Which of course, is primarily how i relate to people.

But then I started noticing some of my autistically-flavored traits: i have a hard time maintaining eye contact and it's very distracting and i feel awkward socially. So i'm relating a bit better to him, but i'd like some feedback from other autistic 4s about your experiences.
 
#2 · (Edited)
As a Social Four, I'm overly opinionated when it comes to certain topics. Diagnosis is one of them. I'm probably going to have this urge to argue once this thread gets going. However, I hate arguing (especially on the Internet). Please, don't get me started on this. *sob* This subject makes me fill with tears.

Personally, I don't see any correlation between autism and the Enneagram. I actually know many Sevens and Nines who have been diagnosed with autism.
 
#3 ·
I have a mild form of Asperger's. My difficulties correlates with HSP traits; I can't be with people for too long before I get over-stimulated and need some time for myself. I think I'm quite socially awkward, but yet people seem to enjoy my company. It was only really a problem back when I had the age where people bully others for being different. I'm not that interested in getting to know a lot of people; I'm quite content with my small group of friends who like me for who I am and whom I like for who they are; off-beat people usually tend to get together with other off-beat people.

Another part of my condition is that I'm quite intelligent (I really hate to seem narcissistic, but it's an objective truth). My mind is always racing, which causes me to over-analyze things. As a result I get so anxious that it affects my body physically - in extreme cases it leads to nausea and nose-bleed (happened all the time when I was a child). I self-medicate with marijuana - every evening I'll smoke a mild joint or two and it slows my mind down, allowing me to relax and realize the stupidity of my chaotic over-thinking. Of course I make sure that it doesn't interfere with my daily duties. Marijuana, consumed daily in moderation, isn't something I would recommend, as some people are unable to handle it - but I wouldn't not recommend it either. I've read a lot of success stories from people with Asperger's who self-medicate with marijuana. Sadly it's still a controversial subject.

I don't think it's true that people on the autistic spectrum are less emotional. Not for me, at least - I'm very emotional and I definitely don't lack empathy. However, sometimes I ignore the empathetic inputs I get because the emotions simply are too hard for me to deal with. I can easily deal with my own emotions (privately), but when it comes to dealing with others' emotions, it's too awkward for me to talk about them. But I don't necessarily think that's an Asperger's trait; many "normal" people are made uncomfortable by others' public display of emotions.

I don't know if any of this is useful, but it's how I experience being a type 4 and being on the autistic spectrum.
 
#4 ·
I don't think I'm either a Four or an Aspie but I share some traits I've seen associated with each. I've always done the stimming thing although I didn't realize there was a word for it, or that other people did it, until just this past year.
But then I started noticing some of my autistically-flavored traits: i have a hard time maintaining eye contact and it's very distracting and i feel awkward socially.
Eye contact is difficult for me. It feels like the other person is inside of me or that they can see my soul laid out before them. I enjoy eye contact with someone who I am intimately involved with or who I'm interested in becoming involved with (I find it rather exhilarating in that context), but with most people it just feels highly invasive.

I think I'm quite socially awkward, but yet people seem to enjoy my company. It was only really a problem back when I had the age where people bully others for being different.
Yeah, I was bullied a lot in school. Nowadays people seem to enjoy and seek my company. It feels nice that my company is appreciated.

I don't think it's true that people on the autistic spectrum are less emotional. Not for me, at least - I'm very emotional and I definitely don't lack empathy. However, sometimes I ignore the empathetic inputs I get because the emotions simply are too hard for me to deal with. I can easily deal with my own emotions (privately), but when it comes to dealing with others' emotions, it's too awkward for me to talk about them. But I don't necessarily think that's an Asperger's trait; many "normal" people are made uncomfortable by others' public display of emotions.
I agree with what you've said here. I can feel others' emotions as if they were my own but I find it overwhelming and it's one of the reasons I need a lot of time to myself to recharge. I also find other people's emotional displays more overwhelming to deal with than my own inner feelings.
 
#5 ·
I'm an autistic 4, but most people say I'm the "opposite" of what they would guess someone with Asperger's would look like. I have less trouble socially as an adult and more trouble with basic living skills. As a child I hated the word "feelings," and sometimes came across cold, though I myself was very sensitive. I couldn't predict the emotions of others. I'm still not always good at predicting the emotions of others, but I'm very emotionally empathetic (just not cognitively -- I'm not good at guessing what people are thinking) and sympathetic.
 
#8 ·
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that the Autism spectrum has nothing to do with being a 4. And that is because I don't see how any of those diagnoses could possibly relate back to the 4 type.

Except for Aspergers syndrome which I think makes a person less likely to be a 4.
People think of people with Aspergers as less emotional, which isn't necessarily true, it's just that they have a difficulty dealing with them and showing/communicating them on the same level as "normal" people. And that's not the part that makes me think of them as less likely to be 4s.

The reason is that 4s seek literature, music, poetry, fashion, anything that resonates with their emotions. Things that help 4s connect with some deep emotion, that's what they seek and want. People with Aspergers don't do this. They don't seek this stuff. In fact, they shy away from it.

I could go on about this subject, but I'm trying not to alienate people who aren't familiar with the diagnosis.
 
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#11 ·
The reason is that 4s seek literature, music, poetry, fashion, anything that resonates with their emotions. Things that help 4s connect with some deep emotion, that's what they seek and want. People with Aspergers don't do this. They don't seek this stuff. In fact, they shy away from it.
I've never heard that people with Asperger's shy away from things that resonate with their emotions.

Anyway, as someone diagnosed with Asperger's I wouldn't say I'm less emotional than other people. I've been a bit over-emotional, really.

Now I haven't always been looking to express myself (especially through fashion), that's true.

I do know another woman with Asperger's who is likely a 4 though.
 
#10 ·
I'm an aspie and an E5, I saw a study with the Big Five, where low extroversion, low agreeableness and high neuroticism was shown to correlate with autism. And if you translate it to MBTI you get IxTx. That does not mean anyone with an IxTx personality have autism, but it does mean that an autistic peron is more likely to be an IxTx personality. I'm not so knowledgeable on the enneagrams of ISTx but enneagram 5 seems to be pretty common for INTx personalities, which makes me pretty average based on my diagnosis because I'm both INTP and enneagram 5w6. But it also means that you are a minority within a minority if you are ie an ISFP enneagram 4.
 
#12 ·
I am a latecomer to this thread, I found it while doing a web search and signed up so I could participate in it. Because I think it's important to understand that a diagnosis is not the same thing as a personality type.

I am autistic. I am also as four as four can be. I have been everything from the unhealthiest four to the healthiest four and everything in between. It fits me like a glove. And for a long time, I didn't want to believe it. I wanted to believe that I was a 5w4. I wanted to be that stereotype, the autism stereotype of the dispassionate scientific person, but I never was that person. I just didn't want to be who I was, which I thought was profoundly defective, which I now know is classic unhealthy four thinking. I have come to embrace who I am, including as a four, and one of my strengths as a four is understanding who I am, and trying to help other people understand who they are.

To look for famous autistic Fours you don't have to go further than Donna Williams. She is in many ways more Four than Four. And she is absolutely autistic.

People when they think of autistic people who are likely to be on these forums, think of a stereotype they call aspie. The aspie stereottype is being less emotional, more scientific, more aloof, afraid of emotion, certainly not immersed in their emotions. But not even everyone with Asperger's meets that stereotype. And not all people with autism have Asperger's, for that matter, even if all aspies were that stereotype.

Autism is a place of big opposites. For every type of autistic person, for every autistic trait they have, you will find another autistic person who has the exact opposite trait. What identifies us is not just the traits themselves taken singly. It's how they fit together. And it's the extremeness. We can have extremely hypersensitive senses, or we can have senses that are so shut off that it takes a blaring siren to make an impact. We can be awash in our own emotions, or we can be so cut off from our own emotions that we barely notice they exist. To make matters more confusing, we can switch back and forth between these different modes of existence depending on the situation.

I would say that the classic aspie on the Enneagram would come out most often as a 5, a 6, or a 1. But that's just the classic stereotypical aspie. Not all autistic people are the classic stereotypical aspie. Not all autistic people are aspies at all. There's also autism and PDDNOS and CDD and Rett's, and that was before they combined it all into one big spectrum diagnosis in the DSM-V to avoid a lot of this confusion.

I've known an aspie who was a classic nine, a peacemaker, he wanted everything to be harmonious all the time and he did his best to make it that way. He and I did the Enneagram together for the first time and that's when I found out I was a 4. Which I immediately recognized as the truth, but over the years went back and forth rejecting, because I was very unhealthy at the time and hated reading about what a screwup I was. :tongue:

Anyway, there is nothing about being a Four that clashes with my autistic traits. In fact, it meshes with my variant of autism very well. The best way to describe my variant of autism is to take the classic aspie stereotype and invert it completely. Rather than logical and cerebral, I am sensory and intuitive. Rather than underemotional, I am overly emotional and too wrapped up in my own emotions, sometimes it used to feel as if I was drowning in them. Rather than lacking in empathy, I am overly empathetic and get overwhelmed by the emotions of others, feeling them as if they are my own, which then can cause a shutdown and an appearance as if I am not processing the information, because there is simply too much of it. Rather than living in my head, I live in the world around me. Rather than understanding things intellectually, I understand them through my senses. Rather than having one rigid, stable set of abilities, I have a constantly shifting set of abilities. I never know from one day to the next what I will be capable of.

Being autistic added to my Four's sense that I was alienated from the entire human race, that I was not even a real person. I used to dream of when my people would come and find me, although I had only the vaguest notions of what 'my people' would be. I took it to an extreme, I tried to live in a fantasy world. This didn't work out for me very well and I eventually abandoned it, but I was stubborn enough to stick it out for years, thinking maybe if I believed hard enough, it would all come true. I eventually had to concede that it never would come true, that I was a human being like everyone else, just a human being with a different brain wiring. I talk to autistic people every day who went on this same journey though. Autistic alienation, adolescent alienation, and Four alienation are a potent and dangerous combination.

I've spent a lot of time learning about myself, and a lot of time learning about autism. Being diagnosed wasn't enough, I had to learn about it for myself before I could believe it, because 'autism' was just a word, and I've never understood the world through words. So I learned the stories of dozens, even hundreds, of autistic people, and I learned that I did in fact have a place within this spectrum. I am not the most common variant of autistic person but I am far from the rarest either. And a lot of autistic people make very good Fours, or very bad Fours as the case may be. (I've done both. I prefer making a good Four.)

While a diagnosis can sometimes push a person's personality in a certain direction, it isn't everything. Certain kinds of autistic people are going to be more likely to be 5, 6, or 1, I think those may be the most common in some ways. But my kind of autistic person is very commonly a 4 or sometimes a 2 or a 9. And there are autistic people who are 3, 7, or 8 as well. Not everyone is the stereotype.

I'm a very very strong 4, with a 5 wing, and pretty much no 3 to me at all. And I'm definitely autistic. And I can see plenty of clear connections between my form of autism and the fact that I'm a Four. In fact it seems so obvious to me, that it's hard to understand why anyone would be surprised by it. Maybe because there is that aspie stereotype out there, and people think that's all there is. But there's a lot more variation within the spectrum than most people are aware of. In order to really see the variation in the spectrum, you can't just be on the web forums. You have to know people in real life. You have to go to meetups, you have to meet people's children who aren't going to be typing things online yet (and some may never), you have to meet a really wide variety of autistic people before you can start making generalizations about our autistic traits or our personality types. And by a wide variety, I would say dozens, or hundreds. There are over 200 books by autistic people, there are even more writings online, and there are lot of groups where autistic people meet each other, or where parents of autistic children bring their children, and in all of those places you can find autistic people. And when you've read things by, or interacted with, or observed in any way, that many, then you can see our true variety as a spectrum, which is enormous.
 
#13 ·
OK fellow fours. I worked as a spectrum outreach specialist for 2 years. During that time I researched a fair amount of autism, and have a lot of knowledge of what someone with autism thinks like as opposed to someone with out.

Of course, its a spectrum, and we're all on the spectrum.

It seems like y'all are not being objective enough. Not to discount your own feeling of being aspergers , but someone so emotionally in tune CAN NOT have aspergers because those with aspergers are NOT emotionally in tune.

ALSO, aspergers tend to PERSEVERATE on MEANINGLESS subjects. NOT illusive meaning attached to objects or words, and the like.

Just because you 'stim' doesnt mean you have aspergers. Also, social awkwardness comes from several places. Not just, aspergers. 4s are very self conscious, but that isnt the same as sociall awkward because you DONT arent self conscious ENOUGH.
 
#21 ·
You also have no idea how much work someone may have put in and gone through to learn how to label their emotional states and become self aware at all.

Trying to diagnosis or invalidate someones issues on a forum is not very nice.
 
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#14 ·
Problems with social skills: Children with Asperger's syndrome generally have difficulty interacting with others and often are awkward in social situations. They generally do not make friends easily. They have difficulty initiating and maintaining conversation.
Eccentric or repetitive behaviors: Children with this condition may develop odd, repetitive movements, such as hand wringing or finger twisting.
Unusual preoccupations or rituals: A child with Asperger's syndrome may develop rituals that he or she refuses to alter, such as getting dressed in a specific order.
Communication difficulties: People with Asperger's syndrome may not make eye contact when speaking with someone. They may have trouble using facial expressions and gestures, and understanding body language. They also tend to have problems understanding language in context and are very literal in their use of language.
Limited range of interests: A child with Asperger's syndrome may develop an intense, almost obsessive, interest in a few areas, such as sports schedules, weather, or maps.
Coordination problems: The movements of children with Asperger's syndrome may seem clumsy or awkward. ORR
you could just be a clutz cuz your heads in the clouds or you care more about your mind than physical stuff
Skilled or talented: Many children with Asperger's syndrome are exceptionally talented or skilled in a particular area, such as music or math.
 
#15 ·
Studies show that there’s a connection between Asperger’s and video game addiction in that those with Asperger’s may “find it easier to empathize and relate to computers than they do other people.”

really think about it, I can say with assurance that all people are so very empathetic, EASILY feel others feelings. Whether they feel comfortable EXPRESSING them is a whole other story.
 
#25 ·
@LeoCat Thanks for the post. I always enjoys looks inside people's minds like that. I wonder how overstimulation and difficulty with certain kinds of in-person contact plays into being an extravert. I imagine being an introvert would be much easier. (I'm a bit of a wannabe introvert myself.)

As far as the thread's concerned, I just really don't see how the characteristics of autism would conflict with being a 4. It's pretty easy for me to imagine a 4 with autism/Aspergers. Would you agree with that, or no?
 
#26 ·
@LeoCat Thanks for the post. I always enjoys looks inside people's minds like that. I wonder how overstimulation and difficulty with certain kinds of in-person contact plays into being an extravert. I imagine being an introvert would be much easier. (I'm a bit of a wannabe introvert myself.)

As far as the thread's concerned, I just really don't see how the characteristics of autism would conflict with being a 4. It's pretty easy for me to imagine a 4 with autism/Aspergers. Would you agree with that, or no?

Your deepest wound and motivation is not the same thing as a neurological difficulty.

A lot of people with autism get into the theatre, dance, arts. To be seen for who they are, envying people who seem more normal. Aspergirls and a few other resources mention this fact. When you train yourself mimicking to keep from standing out much, acting comes naturally.

I personally do not put a lot of stock in enneagram. I use it as a tool to uncover what needs to be made aware and worked on. Not a black and white guide to my life and motivations. I hope that helps.

Anytime you would like to dig in my head you are more than welcome.
 
#27 ·
You sound more like a socially anxious introvert than an autistic person. Social awkwardness and discomfort with eye contact are not always caused by autism spectrum disorder.

The DSM-V has eliminated Asperger's as a valid diagnosis because it became a "fad diagnosis" applied to any individual who was "too different." In high school, my school psychologist insisted I had Asperger's (I don't) for "being quiet and refusing to act like a normal teenage girl". The revised diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder has a much more clearly defined set of symptoms, so I suggest looking it up before you decide you have autistic traits.
 
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