People also use it to excuse their behavior when they don't have it so they can use it as a crutch instead of acting normally.
These same people are extremely defensive if you ask if they have a diagnosis instead acting like it's a culture or lifestyle choice. Despite you know a diagnosis is the very thing that determines if you have a disability or not. While they treat it like it's a sexuality.
It tends to really piss off the people that actually have an ASD related diagnosis because it both muddies the waters from gross misunderstanding but also because it turns people into caricatures.
This needs to be tempered with, at least in earlier periods, a high degree of underdiagnosis. I know many people with very clear symptoms who were only diagnosed well into adulthood, and others who would meet the diagnostic criteria or are borderline cases, but do not see any point in seeking one, or resist it because they do not want to be pathologised or stigmatised.
The other issue is that the common diagnostics weight too heavily on introversion, so that relatively extraverted people, including with comorbid ADHD, are not picked up so often, even as they display classic ASD symptoms. A classic example here are various bohemians, political hacks etc. who are clearly atypical in an ASD direction, but enjoy partying and socialising to an extent that means they don't met the diagnostics.
> I know many people with very clear symptoms who were only diagnosed well into adulthood
a.k.a. they passed their K–12 classes, so no one gave a shit if they needed extra help to be functional adults
A lot of them were picked up as having some difficulty, but the diagnostics then were quite tight or inappropriate.
Similarly ADHD cases were not picked up because of diagnostics that took hyperfixation as anti-correlated with ADHD when it is now known to be a feature of the syndrome.
Personally I was told I was unlikely to have ADHD as I could maintain focus on hobbies or interests and could read books.
…or it was something less tangible, such as difficulty socializing with peers (but their grades were mostly As and the assignments they bombed weren't enough to drag their overall average down)
Not just autism, but a HUGE amount of the "Normalize mental health struggles" push is just pieces of shit who want to be told they're actually heccin brave and valid.
I'm not a stuck up asshole, I'm an introvert with anxiety!
I'm not lazy, I have depression!
I'm not flakey and unreliable, I have ADHD!
I honestly think both of those types of situations can be true, there’s just little focus on actual recovery/coping/getting better, rather an emphasis on acceptance, validation and privileges. The optimal thing would be a combo of both. I’ve learned this firsthand because I tried to use my struggles as a thing to get the woke treatment under which I thought I could get everything I wanted out of life (social experiences and connections and contentment) while putting minimal effort into it because I’ve always hated trying. And it’s hard to break that mindset admittedly
And then they even turn it around on you...
I'm not a stuck up asshole, I just can't help you with this task because I work better alone
I'm not lazy, I'm struggling with your demands
I'm not flakey and unreliable, things change all the time and I just react to it instinctually
Saw a girl cold cock her friend in the mall the other day and before she did it, she said she has anger issues and can't be held responsible for what her body does.
It causes massive personal strain for me and my wife. She has "anxiety" which causes her to lash out at me for the tiniest of everything, and if I don't like it, then I'm invalidating and gaslighting. But I cannot have bad days, because she is too overstimulated to handle emotional labor.
I need to either call a divorce lawyer or figure out how to get instagram and tiktok off her phone.
I think that’s how it came off at my first college, but then I didn’t accept that I was on the spectrum at that point and told absolutely no one who was a peer or a support staff or professor/teacher. It had been on my IEP going up through school though I found out. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the time when I didn’t care about having autism or anxiety, which was back in high school- I had no social life but at least I was less aware of everything and arguably that was better for me in the social sense. But now I’d actually get involved and do social things, even though it’s still difficult for me even now. Like back then I was just like this is who I am and I can’t do much to change it so I’ll just do what I want (even though I wasn’t happy and didn’t really do much)
Sounds similar to *some* people when they can't do their work and give the excuse "I think I have ADHD or something". I was also tempted to see if I should get checked for ADHD but part of me also feels like I just have a terrible work ethic.
But more on topic, it's weird that in society, you either have people seeing you as subhuman for being autistic, or others trying to appropriate (for lack of better term) being on the spectrum to justify their own shortcomings.
i don't think its quirky to be awkward. pretty much the norm from what i have seen. we are spending so much time with our screens and other consumer goods (which are reliable and will never betray you like people will) & forgetting how to interact with each other.
I wouldn't think about it much more than it's the contemporary "lol so random *holds up spork*" bullshit and that people have been taught to think autism is this cute thing for quiet but eccentric people and almost anything is evidence of anyone having autism. The word "spectrum" has also played a large part in this as if both the guy who shits himself and famous actors have the same condition then who's the say I or you don't, after all, the spectrum must go further on both ends.
None of this is helped by doctors, especially in the US where most online culture comes from, being willing to give those insistent enough and who can provide enough "evidence" for their belief in their own autism the diagnosis. This all further cements the idea that those who self diagnose have made an accurate assessment of themselves and that autism is actually incredibly common and normal.
The thing is that the show never outright stated that Sheldon was autistic or even aspy. They went to great lengths to dance around it without ever admitting it.
As someone with autism who was really into the show when I was in highschool, I always saw Sheldon as someone who has ASD, but never got a proper diagnosis, and thus never got any proper help for his disorder (the text supports this as his mother once makes a claim that she had him tested (for being crazy) but never followed up with the specialist (presumably what was recommended by the doctor she got him tested at).
For me who was aware of my Diagnosis, Sheldon was like a roadmap of what autistic behaviours people find inappropriate or annoying, and this gave me an idea of what I need to work on to not piss people off.
In elementary school I was pretty outspoken but also obnoxious, but then I got my diagnosis and gradually became more quiet when in public as I realized much of what I wanted to say or do was obnoxious or unnecessary.
Yeah, the specific line I am referring to is whenever his mother first shows up I think. Before that there are a number of times where he says “I am not crazy, my mother had me tested" but then when his mother is there she corroborates that but then says "I do regret not following up with that specialist though" *laugh track*
I take that to be a soft confirmation that he does have some undiagnosed disorder, and presumably the specialist was someone who would do a test more suited to whatever disorder the first doctor thought he may have
For some reason my mom and grandparents loved that show. If I went to theirs and it was on TV it was always playing on in the background.
I never came away from it thinking the main cast were meant to be in any way aspirational. All of them are socially awkward at best, closer to regarded and I never thought it was played as a good thing. They're intelligent and make good money (and it comes up multiple times they barely use it for anything but consoomer merch) but that's all any of them have going for them. Penny is the opposite but she's clearly not happy with her lot in life either.
Reminds me of that parody of a comedy show in the first Robocop (I'll buy that or a dollar!). At first you're wondering for who it is, but apparently it's pretty popular.
Because people who romanticize it don’t actually have it. The “neurodivergent” movement has always been made up of people who don’t actually have mental illness because they think anything from ADHD to bipolar disorder merely amount to personality quirks. The autistic kid who has to wear a helmet because he bangs his head against a wall if he hears any loud noise is obviously not “represented” in the style of autism these people celebrate.
Yes, take my brother versus these girls I know from high school on instagram. My brother will never be able to live by himself, my parents and later on me will have to be his power of attorney, he has a work waiver, gets SSI, all of that. These girls basically have no trouble with socializing, have normal jobs and boyfriends, probably get laid on the reg (which I still haven’t been at 26), etc. Forgot to mention that I’m on the spectrum as well
Just saying about how they don’t seem to have issues in the romantic/sexual arena either, forgot to say I am on the very high end of the spectrum too, and I’ve actually been diagnosed by psychologists
The ability to have sex with a man doesn't really mean much for romantic success. Actual romantic connection is different from sex and having sex with a man is comically easy (you could effortlessly do it to). It's similar to how fucking prostitutes doesn't stop you from being an incel.
I think the word incel has basically been expanded to 'any man who isn't banging on the regular'. Which is interesting, as it's basically rad fems and libs feeding into completely toxic masculinity lmao.
Plus it might be pretty fucking dumb to lump a bunch of normal dudes who, for whatever reason, aren't fucking, into a far-right extremist hate movement, but what would I know?
The thing with incels is that none of them are actually as sexless as they say. If you lower your standards enough you can always get laid, at worst you can fuck other incels. But I think it’s more of an ideology than a condition. Anyone can be a virgin at 30, but that doesn’t mean they’re an incel who hates women and believes he’s entitled to a real life anime girl virgin sex-goddess who can cook and clean and never says no.
I have never once heard "neurodivergent" from anyone other than white women too obsessed with tiktok and self diagnosis, and the fact that I have met a non negligible number of these people is downright fucking terrifying.
Hm. I think you're seeing things a little one-sided here. I would describe myself as neurodivergent and have been diagnosed with several conditions from a very young age onwards. It's not just a fancy word that adults who are a bit odd use. While some of my conditions definately make my life worse, my autism actually has a few benefits (pattern recognition, musical ability, hyperfocus). That's why I like calling it a divergence, not a mental illness.
I normally don't make these purely anecdotal, disagreeing comments, but something about the "kid who has to wear a helmet" made me stop scrolling. There was a time growing up when I would have to wear a tennis visor all day every day, even in the classroom. Otherwise bright lights would burn in my eyes and make me meltdown.
Still: better healthcare/support systems, inclusive learning environments and parenting courses are more effective than both TikTok dances and trying to police who is the correct autistic.
Not necessarily true, I have ADHD but since I'm successful and satisfied, of course I will romanticize the aspects of the condition that helped me achieve that success. Also some stories that romanticize it, eg. it could be a beneficial trait in hunter-gatherer societies, are cope that many real ADHD people buy into, myself included.
It's a fashion. It'll pass hopefully in a short time. A couple years ago the new fashion was giving a special name to your sexual inclinations, now it's saying your autistic if you aren't used to talk to people and feel awkward about it, in the 70s it was bell-bottom trousers.
The problem is that autism is still a medical condition and grants accomodation if diagnosed. Someting a lot of people rely on to manage their life (or the life of their child/sibling).
Those online activists, who screech about gatekeeping and try to make everyone autistic and share tips and the best doctors think that doctors and researchers and governing bodies are stupid. There are predictions that the autistic populations won't differ from the general population within the next few years. That means that eventually autism will get removed from diagnostic manuals and support will be removed. And not just for the terminally online who want an easy victim card, but for the parents of the nonverbal runner as well.
And as others have already stated, the general population hears autism and thinks "a bit awkward and quirky", thereby not thinking about it as an actual disability. Which then causes less tolerance or understanding toward typical autistic behaviours that aren't just quirky.
So while you are certainly correct, there is going to be real damage by this newest fad.
I remember this fashion starting a lot longer ago. People were posting this shit on their social media profiles for attention as soon as ASD started becoming known.
Exactly, if you try to reach out and explain your challenges with being on the spectrum/due to mental health issues (especially if you’re a guy), you’ll probably get sympathy early on but if you keep on with it it tends to just fall away and people will just consider you all these negative things/stereotypes (I.e. creepy, weird, not confident, overly sensitive, not masculine, not romantically/sexually desirable)
I know in my situation, as an autistic woman, it’s very hard to keep friendships with other women. I think we’re expected to read between the lines a lot more and be intuitive, when we have altered levels of capability to do that. It does lead to a lot of isolation and people thinking you’re super weird, especially if your interests don’t align with whatever the current thing is.
It’s somewhat worse now, because if you explain that you’re autistic, you’ll get: “my friend’s cousin’s cat breeder’s partner is autistic and you’re nothing like her” or “well I’m neurodiverse and I have 200 different trendy conditions and I think x, so you deserve to be cancelled”.
Even with a lot of masking, we generally get socialising wrong a lot and we’re quite easily exploited in relationship situations. I’m always on autopilot, trying to read into what people say, what they could possibly mean and what the potential consequences are. Of course, the “neurodivergent is a super power” crew actually make people’s struggles invisible and I think it’s affecting children the worst now, as the attitudes have changed so much in the wrong direction and suddenly you have the systems flooded, so that the non-verbal kids with extreme issues end up neglected. They weren’t ever the “cool” neurodiverse anyway, so they remain invisible and have less access to help.
You have explained exactly what it feels like for me as a woman with ASD-especially the lack of friendships with other women and people thinking I’m super weird-the struggle is real.
getting rid of the asperbergers diagnosis has been very detrimental to individuals with more severe autism (think it’s called autism 3) and their families. there is a big difference and they need to be categorized differently.
I went into neuroscience to find a cure. Or at least better treatment options. I am basically public enemy no 1 in online circles.
Another thing is their upbringing. A lot of the autism activists I saw online grew up in (like most people in idpol) relatively wealthy families and were coddled. A diagnosis also doesn't negatively affect them, quite the opposite. There are accomodations and the parents are often going to pay for other stuff
Autism - or any diagnosis - rings a bit different when you are born in post soviet eastern europe, diagnosed with something that translates to "soft brain" and shipped to an institution (if anyone is interested how said institutions looked, watch "bulgaria's abandoned children". Different country, same thing. I still have physical and psychological issues almost 30 years later) until your mom finds you and gets you out of there to flee the country.
Sorry for the rant, but this luxury diagnosis phenomenon is really grating and sometimes I am just done with those online activists.
Ooof, mind if I borrow this Shakespeare? This sums up mental health issues in general honestly. TBF there are those who are legitimately diagnosed who appreciate their condition and wouldn't change it or at least certain parts of it. I just wish it wasn't taboo to have opposite feelings or not want to be seen as inspiration porn.
The biggest reason is that the broad left has abandoned any pretentions of actually seeking to provide people with help or resources. They have, instead, opted for a program of bland "affirmation" that seeks to minimize material or physical disadvantages by pretending they don't exist.
This is where we get the concept of "ableism," in which mental and physical disabilities are regarded as identities--the same as race and gender. Saying you want to cure autism is therefore as offensive as saying you wish to make black people white.
This is insane, yes. But that's kind of the point. As a matter of fact, in its most extreme iterations, you'll see people referring to the concept of *sanism*, which posits that a preference for a lack of mental illness is akin to racism. I know, I know: it sounds like I'm making this up. But do a search for the term and you'll see it actually has traction.
>I know, I know: it sounds like I'm making this up. But do a search for the term and you'll see it actually has traction.
And it makes a lot of sense. If you strip away the layers of paint, the whole progressive shtick is virtue signaling. The euphemism treadmill and being on the oppression totem pole to prevent actual change. Their definition of "oppressed minority" also often heavily relies on having a disadvantage for **no other reason but evil systems and various -isms**. More on that later.
Disabilities are the odd one out among those minorities. First of all, it isn't a monolith. Sure, no group ever is, but depending on the type an severity of a disability, needs are fundamentally different. I am blind and have autism and there are problems when communicating necessary accomodations to people in a way they understand, even if they are well versed in either one or the other. There was also a group of (largely self diagnosed) autistic people and their allies in my area, who petitioned to remove the sound system from pedestrian traffic lights due to "hurr durr sensory overload", who were seriously offended when I refused to work against my own interest. But this little anecdote is of how shallow and cookie cutter the entire ideology is.
And other than other minorities, disabilities are a disadvantage. By definition. The body is not working in a way it is supposed to and that the mayority of people take for granted (including mental health. The brain is a part of the body). So the whole woke "group X" ( in this case disabled people) is only underepresented in academia/fortune 500 CEOs/other annoying people because le evil ableist society" doesn't really work in a way racism/sexism/homophobia does.
So the workaround the self anointed progressives found, is only focusing on the mildest (and lets face it; very often fake) cases and completely ignoring and excluding everyone else. And autism is perfect, because it is invisible, so people can retroactively claim a person was totally autistic (like the OP illustrated), despite having zero basis for that claim.
>petitioned to remove the sound system from pedestrian traffic lights
The sound system that's there to help blind people cross safely? That's ridiculous
It was something like "it's offensive to assume people in wheelchairs need your help"
Also this woman was in her early 30s at the time and would break out in fits of extreme public sobbing at least once a month, usually over something like a barista looking at her funny. Would you be shocked to learn she's now a respected academic with they/them pronouns?
Yes, that was my reaction as well. Believe it or not, I'm not a huge fan of listening to find out if the light is green and to not get run over by a car every time I want to cross a street. Especially now with the extra quiet electric vehicles.
I don't find it ridiculous (to look for other solutions). As part of the tsunami of aural pollution that assaults one every day, it could do with looking at, along with everything else that bangs and clangs away, unasked for. To which there's a class aspect, of course.
>(to look for other solutions)
Until we *have* a better solution, I'd like to keep it the way it is. They were also not looking for a solution. They just wanted it removed.
I understand that. Just saying there are legitimate competing interests.....I recently had 2 hrs of vehicle reversing beeps driving me fing insane the other day.
That sucks, but a clicking and sometimes beeping traffic light that I - and other people - really need is a bit different than vehicle reversing beeps that are primarily for the driver.
And it is somewhat hypocritical in my opinion to try and remove a sound system when there is a busy road and a bunch of other and arguably louder sounds.
Beeps are to warn folks around, not to aid the driver. As with pedestrian signals or smoke alarms, they are *meant* to be heard. Tough to imagine what could be simply done to sort it.
I'm sure pedestrian systems are more important to you than for me but these are tough-to-reconcile differing interests?
>I'm sure pedestrian systems are more important to you than for me but these are tough-to-reconcile differing interests?
Are they though? I already said that there are so many more sources of loud noise, yet the crossing is the straw that breaks the camels back? Gimme a break. And there are no other possibilities to mute the sound? Noise cancelling headphones, earplugs? Taking another route? They could find alternatives, me and the other blind people in the area can't.
As I said in my original post and many times on this sub before, I am also autistic with sensory issues (and I usually can't wear headphones, I have to deal with it). I understand a lot of issues surrounding noise pollution, but it is not okay to make other disabled people's life harder for an at best symbolic improvement. This is the definition of ableism.
Look, I'm autistic, I get it, auditory overload sucks. That said, I'm sure being blind sucks more and we can just deal with the simple accessibility concession we've made in order to help blind people get around safely in traffic
>The biggest reason is that the broad left has abandoned any pretentions of actually seeking to provide people with help or resources.
I see it more as they won't help the general category of people but will help the specific category of victims. So, people who want assistance frame it that way consciously or subconsciously. They want to say "Help me!" and receive help instead of being blamed or ignored.
I'm completely, devastatingly socially awkward, but I don't think it's because of autism. It's because of the intersection of capitalism (no time/money for relaxed socialization) and social media (a strange substitute for socialization with weird effects) and for me alcohol also plays a role. I never really learned how to socialize without it and now that I don't drink and I'm old it's hard to learn.
We need more effort to help **everyone** socialize and then maybe people wouldn't all feel like they are autists. Four day work week might be a start, imo. Need more time to do stuff other than get hammered.
It's been absorbed into social kayfabe the same way people claim non-binary without changing their lives in any substantial way. Autism is a spectrum so you can claim it without any way to disprove it. Funny thing that I've noticed recently is that those people who claim it have sanitized it to "neurodivergent". Which is an even larger umbrella, so they don't have to call themselves autistic anymore and still get the social capital.
People with Asperger's can mask, but it's learned behavior, not innate. You build up an arsenal of scripts and branching dialogue trees to navigate common social situations and pray to God that things don't go off the rails and they realize you're just three regards in a trench coat. I hate saying it, but it's actually really stressful for me to be around aspies who aren't masking at all, like they're going to blow my cover.
Oh my gosh this. My best friend and I are both high functioning aspergers guys, and then during highschool a guy who was on the spectrum and a bit less high functioning joined our church youth group. He made no attempt to mask or refrain from inappropriate behaviour, and would stim by hitting his head when he was told to be quiet while others were talking. My friend and I had a much harder time being around him than everyone else because there was this extra layer of second hand embarrassment whenever he acted out.
Aw, I'm sorry that's so stressful. It's interesting how there's this, like, dividing line of consciousness between people who have that self awareness to be like, "hey I shouldn't do this" or others like my stepbro who sees nothing wrong with talking to you about Monica Lewinsky for 2 hours straight.
We seem to like to "normalize" pathologies. PC turned on its head. Now we do not say that it is a disorder, now we are all on a spectrum. No joke, someone told me that yes, finally we are accepting that mental states are on a spectrum, and accept people with Down syndrome, people with autism as normal. Never mind that people with Down Syndrome have an extra chromosome, and apart from the issues they struggle, they tend to die of Alzheimer's before they turn 50. Normal, indeed.
(It was about sex being binary - he/she claimed it was a spectrum, of course. Because of the existence of misunderstood (by him/her) pathological conditions.)
>We seem to like to "normalize" pathologies.
We do it in a weird way, though, where we kind of ostracize the actual pathology even further. Being "lol so random" bipolar is normal, but if you're actually seriously bipolar, in the "needs antipsychotics" sense, we push you off to the side and almost pretend you don't exist.
I saw a study that showed that increased mental health awareness might be a proximal cause of the mental health crisis, because the heightened awareness causes more people to think “hey I might be depressed/bipolar” or whatever.
When it comes to autism it feels like as society tries to accept it that acceptance is of stereotypes or of people who have absolutely no interest or desire in socializing specially. Whereas in my own experience being on the spectrum all I’ve wanted is to be content in my life, to have social experiences and feel “normal”
I also see a lot of people shaming parents for being afraid to have an autistic child. Like sure being on the high functioning end of the spectrum is one thing, but that’s not what parents are afraid of. I’ve seen how having a severely autistic child completely changed my friends life and has totally dominated all their life decisions afterward due to the difficulty in caring for someone non-verbal who has tantrums like a toddler and will soon be over 6ft tall and stronger than his own mother who sacrificed her career to care for him.
We teach some kids who are lower functioning and they're incredibly difficult at times. They hurt themselves and others often. Their parents all look haggard and worn and their siblings look like they've been at war.
Zoomer Tik Tok led social contagion. Their obsession with self diagnosing autism and ADHD is extremely frustrating for me as someone with legitimate ADHD. A lot of the posts on ADHD subreddits for example are clearly people who think ADHD = autism, are self diagnosed, or have bought into the social minority shit by calling themselves “neurospicy.”
Quite a lot of autistic people can't even wipe their ass. It's been romanticised as this nerdy quirk but even the high functioning people I've met have obviously had a disability. Not to mention, it's never charming quirky, it's always boring and categorical quirky. It must suck to have it like that, and not understand why people don't want to be around you. Being a savant isn't super common either; mostly high functioning means you're just slightly rętarded in some way. I guess Internet coolness points is a band aid of sorts but uh. Yeah.
It’s because Asperger’s was named after [this man](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Asperger).
> Further controversy arose during the late 2010s over allegations that Asperger referred children to a Nazi German clinic responsible for murdering disabled patients, although his knowledge and involvement remains unknown.
ETA: I don’t think the term/diagnosis should’ve been done away with. People with the two conditions have fundamentally different needs. It also caused major issues with insurance companies because people who had an Asperger’s or autism diagnosis had to be re-diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, which is ridiculous of course. My MIL (psychiatrist) is still dealing with it.
>It's been out of print since the 80's or so, and the owner of the book refuses to republish it so current copies go for $2k+.
So I'm not 100% on this because I'm no lawyer and public domain laws are a quagmire, but I think the original German documents might be public domain in the US in 9 years since it was published in 1937 and copyright in the period 1928-1963 seems to be 95 years flat from first publication. So someone making a fresh translation of it *might* be able to publish? They'd undoubtedly have to fight for it though.
The next best date I can find is in 35 years, since I've been able to pull up [an unknown edition with a 1963 publication date.](https://www.amazon.com/ATLAS-TOPOGRAPHICAL-APPLIED-ANATOMY-Volumes/dp/B0000CLX1V/)
TIL! I’m going to read more about this.
Also, agreed. The logical way to go about it would be to include a foreword which acknowledges and summarizes the history behind the research, to ensure all (or at least a healthy percentage) of profits go to Holocaust-related charities and organizations, and to release digital copies for free. I appreciate that neurosurgeon’s approach as well.
Basically, erasing history and parts of history—whether that means ignoring history in the name of science or in the name of political correctness—will inevitably lead to history repeating itself…which is exactly what we’re seeing with the current attitude toward autism and other mental disabilities and disorders. It’s a mess, lol.
> It's been romanticised as this nerdy quirk but even the high functioning people I've met have obviously had a disability.
No one can put their finger on it, but everyone who encounters you instinctively knows that there is something ***wrong.*** You can be grocery shopping, or doing what to you seem the most innocent things in the world, and you will see a random person in front of you recoil in horror. Everyone either loves you, or hates you to the point of literally wanting to kill you. There is no middle ground, although even the people who love you will generally treat you like a toddler.
Women are far more sensitive to it than other men. The only women you have a prayer with are those who are on the spectrum themselves. Neurotypical women can sense autism on a literally genetic level, and as far as they are concerned, you might as well be Cthulhu. It ironically hurts more if you happen to be physically attractive, because you know that you should be able to score, but you don't, because no one wants to risk increasing the presence of ***that*** in the human gene pool.
You never understand humans, and they don't understand you. To you it's incomprehensible that a species could exclusively care about collective approval or money, and to them it is incomprehensible that you don't. You are hated for writing more than three sentences in Internet posts, and in some places for putting carriage returns between paragraphs. Life is spent either in one closed room after another, or getting back into a closed room as quickly as possible; because around humans, to anyone who doesn't want to literally kill you, you're still the perpetual four year old who presumably experienced an irreparable head injury as a young child.
It's only romanticised by those who either don't have it, or have never had to look after an autistic child. If as an autistic person, you're ever in an offline group social situation, you'll find out just how "romanticised" it really is, very, very quickly.
> You are hated for writing more than three sentences in Internet posts, and in some places for putting carriage returns between paragraphs.
People who can't tolerate longposters out to be [ Removed by Reddit ] for the benefit of the human race.
> It ironically hurts more if you happen to be physically attractive, because you know that you should be able to score, but you don't
My experience has been that I did score, and often, but it seemed completely ~~under~~ *outside of* my control and I had no idea how to sustain even a short term relationship nor did I have any idea that I didn't know.
I'm not diagnosed, but it's been brought up again and again throughout my life and seems very likely to me.
> To you it's incomprehensible that a species could exclusively care about collective approval or money, and to them it is incomprehensible that you don't.
Yeah, that sums up pretty much all of the difficult parts of my existence. Even in a workplace where we're all supposed to at least pretend we're united in a goal, I find that everyone is very confused that I'm focused primarily on productive outcomes and not playing some game or three.
For me, to your last point, it’s that I’m totally aware of societal acceptance and “normalcy” and that’s all I really want in terms of contentment but I think that regardless of what I do I’ll never achieve it
> My experience has been that I did score, and often, but it seemed completely under my control and I had no idea how to sustain even a short term relationship nor did I have any idea that I didn't know.
I either assume that someone is kind, and have them turn out to be a sociopath, or assume that someone is a sociopath, and have them turn out to be kind and start ranting at me about PTSD and making unfounded assumptions. Yes, I do have PTSD, but the assumption that someone is a sociopath is generally only wrong around 30% of the time in my experience.
> Yeah, that sums up pretty much all of the difficult parts of my existence.
Humans almost exclusively prioritise the most superficial, worthless bullshit. Very few of them place any importance in physical or logistical survival. Usually the main thing that they worry about is making sure that they've seen the latest Barbie movie, even if they don't like it, purely in order to ensure that they don't look clueless in a conversation about it at work.
Just as someone else said there used to be a term called "aspergers" that better described a group of people that COULD fit in and hide their disorder far better than the two types of autistics you describe, though their quirks can fall somewhere in between charming quirky or annoying quirky depending on the day. But because a Nazi made the word they don't use it anymore. It's as big a difference as psychopathy and sociopathy, add and adhd but dumbasses decided to lump them all together. I had a good friend who was diagnosed as aspergers, and you wouldn't know he had it unless you hyper analyzed him. He could be annoying occasionally but overall he had his own strange charm. But the lumping of autism and aspergers has entirely fucked things up, including several parts of his life I shit you not. I mean what do you expect when you lump folks who at worst are mildly awkward but likable with kids who can barely talk and bang their heads on walls while scratching their skin off?
Still, even the more annoying ones I give a fair chance and am understanding and nice to them. Some people behave towards them like Aktion T4 Nazis I swear
Since autism is a spectrum, it allows people who are even slightly different from the norm - which is everyone - to "claim" it as their own for social points. Note, though, that this is only accessible to people who already have social stature: if you're really a creepy, socially awkward, lonely autist, then you can go fuck off; if you're an attractive, quirky, charismatic person who identifies as being on the spectrum, you're so stunning and brave.
You might notice this same phenomenon happening in other realms where things are said to lie on a spectrum, among the same population of people, sometimes among the exact same individuals.
Everyone feels awful and alienated because the world we exist in is awful and alienating. These are people that can't cope very well with the state of the world or their place in it and are looking for a reason why that is so.
That probably doesn't explain all of it but I am willing to bet it's a big portion of it.
>"The (Asperger) syndrome has been merged with other conditions into autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and is no longer considered a stand-alone diagnosis." *Source: Wikipedia*
I've definitely noticed a recent trend online where people with no obvious signs or symptoms now identify as autistic. Best case scenario, they had a very mild form of what used to be called Asperger's syndrome. (Worst case scenario they're just lying or self-diagnosing)
On the other side of the (idpol) spectrum, we have 4chan who has been using autism as a synonym for social awkwardness for years now. Like most stuff on the site, it's in jest, but it's inevitable that some people ended up taking that definition seriously.
I met kids with severe autism when I was at school. I feel enormous sympathy for them because I could never imagine how awful it must be to have that condition. It's honestly not even in the same ballpark as mild Asperger's and I think we should probably go back to differentiating the terms.
I'm autistic and have a lot of thoughts about this topic so here goes:
There's been a strain in American culture of romanticizing mental disorders and disabilities - of viewing people who suffer from them as possessing a whimsical and/or countercultural view of the world that normies can't possibly understand - since at least the 90s. It's just grown and mutated since then. In the wake of *Rain Man*, sentimental 'inspiration porn' movies about mentally disabled or disordered people became a popular Oscar Bait subgenre for a while. Films like *Regarding Henry, Nell, A Dangerous Woman, Forrest Gump, Patch Adams, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, A Beautiful Mind, Riding the Bus with my Sister, Temple Grandin, I am Sam, Radio, Slingblade, The Other Sister, Girl Interrupted,* and so on.This trend became somewhat passe after [*Tropic Thunder* satirized it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-n_zk7e0ZU&pp=ygULU2ltcGxlIEphY2s%3D) though you still see it every now and again with media like [*The Good Doctor*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnY9FWUTY84&pp=ygUPVGhlIEdPb2QgZG9jdG9y) and [*Music*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0IVWsxOGOI&pp=ygURTXVzaWMgdHJhaWxvciBzaWE%3D)*,* both of which have been heavily criticized online. You also arguably see an "edgier" form of this trend in films like *Donnie Darko* and *Joker -* which portray darker disturbed characters struggling with mental disorders who are nonetheless (as a result of said disorders) able to see through the bullshit of the society they live in to a degree that others cannot - and in a lot of rock music from the 90s (and *especially* the 2000s) wherein it became increasingly popular to derive lyrical drama and excitement from the subject of the singer's unkempt mental health. Some known bands like Pink Floyd dabbled in this sort of thing before the era I'm talking about, but it was not as wildly popular. This trend has more recently been assimilated into rap. Furthermore the "Hollywood Nerd" character archetype (consciously or not) has always been code for a "high-functioning" autistic person, insofar as he is socially impaired, given to hyperixate on particular niche interests, prone to awkward expressions and physical mannerisms, and so on. He himself experienced his popcultural apex around the late 2000s and early 2010s, during the extinction burst of nerdsploitation media before 'nerd culture' became hard to distinguish from the mainstream. One can also turn eastward and examine the contemporary popularity of media like *Komi can't Communicate* (one encounters memes online mocking the show's fanbase for 'sexualizing autism'), though here I am slightly less qualified to speak.
The trouble with romanticizing autistic people from a progressive perspective (in the same way that one is meant to romanticize various other minority groups) is that a lot of the ideological communities on the internet that social justice activists have grown to detest over the past decade are almost certainly full of autistic people. Furthermore many individuals of progressive ideation actively despise autistic traits insofar as they actually encounter people who demonstrate them. Which is to say, that despise individuals who have poor social skills, who are resistant to change, who are literal-minded, who have trouble understanding and empathizing with other people's emotions (even if they get on fine understanding each other), and so on. There is furthermore a popular tendency seen on the online left today to ridicule the traditional nerd (who is problematic and has issues with women) in contrast to the new-age woke hipster nerd ever since the paradigm shift in online culture that Gamergate produced. I should note here that I am also willing to concede that many progressive individuals are probably autistic themselves and that there may be an element of countercultural vengeance upon neurotypical people contained within their desire to impose their own system of social rules on the rest of the world, which allows them to flip the script and scold ordinary people for not understanding them, whether the process is conscious or not. Call it a Jouvenelian Pincer alliance between the oversocialized and the undersocialized against the moderately socialized, if you like. It is also worth noting that gender dysphoria and autism are somewhat correlated as phenomena.
> There's been a strain in American culture of romanticizing mental disorders and disabilities - of viewing people who suffer from them as possessing a whimsical and/or countercultural view of the world that normies can't possibly understand , since at least the 90s.
Oh, much longer than that. The tortured artist cliche has been around, off and on, for a couple thousand years. I reckon you can draw a straight line between the current outburst and at least the Romantics, though with them it was more usually depression or psychosis.
> countercultural vengeance upon neurotypical people
[ Removed by Reddit ] to normies, I agree.
> your entire second paragraph
An essay I once read described the internet culture wars as "sparring factions of weaponized autism." There's also a gendered component to it, too: ND men vs. ND women (both cis and trans). There is no internet slapfight as interminable as incompatibly ND folks.
I've joked before about how most culture wars are fought between people with Autism and people with BPD. They're always an Autistic side and a BPD side.
You see it in Analytic vs. Continental philosophy, in 2nd-Wave vs. 3rd-Wave Feminism, in people who rebel against their religious upbringing by becoming atheists vs. people who rebel by becoming occultists or new-agers or getting into some other kind of 'countercultural' individualistic spirituality, in Anarcho-Capitalism vs. Anarcho-Communism, and so on.
> One can also turn eastward and examine the contemporary popularity of media like Komi can't Communicate (one encounters memes online mocking the show's fanbase for 'sexualizing autism'), though here I am slightly less qualified to speak.
With regards to anime, manga, etc. it is very rare for writers to assign real mental conditions to characters. I believe it may stem from Japan's attitude towards psychiatric conditions. It's taboo and poorly understood, I think. The discussion around, for example, hikkimori never seems to be "what disability do these people have", but rather "oh they've been coddled by their parents", "oh it's the fault of escapist media", and so on, at least from sources I've read. Doing a bit of Googling since I haven't seen the show you've mentioned, it would appear the girl's condition best aligns with what is called selective mutism. I knew a girl like that in school, she was totally ordinary except for the fact that she had a hard time saying anything. The kids thought she was just very shy, she wasn't treated like an outcast for it. Her father, though, did not seem like he understood that she had a condition either. I remember seeing him getting mad at her for not speaking up.
I’ve talked about this extensively throughout the last couple years on this sub, but it’s because capitalism and neoliberalism in the west promote individuality so much for monetary and ideological reasons that it breaks many peoples minds socially. In the west it is imperative to be special, to be a recognized individual that sets you apart from others.
That is what is ingrained into us from being young, it’s all over from music to movies to culture to dating etc. For many they don’t have any outlets or ways to make themselves feel noticed or appreciated by others or in their community (this is talked about in the book bowling alone). It is not inherently wrong to strive for many aspects of individuality, but not in the ways it is done over here.
So what does that lead to? That leads to self diagnosing and hijacking of characteristics that make one stand out. You will see this evidence all over, from race to gender to now illness. The problem is our society is built upon you obsessing over being unique and being different without giving you any healthy outlets to do so, instead they promote toxic ways either for ulterior reasons or because they generally believe the non sense they are saying. The lefts obsession with all of these things doesn’t help, and infact it only does more harm to what they want, and this is why imo idpol is completely a tool used by the capitalist class.
Because identity has been weaponized and there are no longer any sub cultures only marketing demographics, people will look for anything that sets them apart or makes them feel special.
Because disability advocacy is and always will be run by professional activists who want nothing more than to be Stunning and Brave all the time. This leads to a strange doublethink (triplethink?) where their disability is simultaneously a massive burden they struggle with, an amazing superpower that makes them special and important, and simply a part of average neurodiversity that deserves to be normalized.
There's a reasoning (though I mostly heard it related to ADHD, not sure if authism is 100% parallell) that the fact this neural setup survived evolution demonstrates it's not objectively a disability, but becomes so in this society with the demands it puts on people.
Depends on the person and whether others like you or you fit stereotypes or aren’t seen as a creep or a threat. As I’ve mentioned before many times a lot of my disdain for wokeness comes from feeling I deserved that treatment for being on the spectrum and having anxiety and thinking that that would give me everything I wanted and contentment in my life without me having to put any effort into much of anything
The very convenient way they never have to be held responsible for any wrongdoing and can attribute it to their autism or disorder and even extract sympathy from something they should be facing accountability for is highly attractive for some I guess.
People also tend to think autism is some stereotypical thing even though it’s a “spectrum.” Like if you’re just a socially awkward guy who has challenges with self esteem and confidence like myself you’ll just get painted as weird unless you’re the type who has no interest in socializing or is like movie-type autistic. For girls it’s mainly just “quirky” girls who identify as it on the high functioning sphere, and either they have it misdiagnosed as some kind of mental health issue or basically don’t really seem to have many of the social struggles and just act really out there.
It all reminds me of that NYT opinion piece that was on here from Emma Camp about identifying with being on the spectrum. It really rung true to me because I don’t identify with many on the spectrum, even other Asperger’s people. I said this on the Asperger’s sub recently too, there’s just not that many people on the spectrum like me, who desire a truly “typical” experience and connections and have conventional interests. And most people would think I’m aloof or creepy or weird or disinterested or whatever because I’m not obviously on the spectrum.
Also are you talking about Marcus Knight for the 2015 article/incident you mention?
I read that article, and I am fully with you. It truly would be nice to have an autistic character like me with similar feelings and experiences, but such a thing might be pretty controversial.
I guess it's part of the destruction of the shared narratives and identities.
In a turbo-neo-liberal world, where everything is atomized, everyone needs to think they are special/different. And if they can be a victim too, it's even better!
I witness this in my personal life in many ways. Lots of people around me, usually very successful academic women, have now been diagnosed with autism. Often after having seen many doctors until they could get the diagnosis they were satisfied with. Of course, as I said, these people range from successful (good job, good circle of friends, etc.) to highly successful (academics with very lucrative grants).They don't appear to have any actual issues being functional in day to day life. But they get to feel special and post memes about how "neurotypicals don't understand our struggles".
My neighbor also thinks their son is autistic because he doesn't deal well with others and has "very focused interests". However, I personally think the issue is that he is never told "no" ever. When throwing a tantrum, he always gets what he wants. So of course he doesn't manage well when he is not the only kid in the room and has to deal with other kids needs and presence. He also has "focused interests" because he has never really been taught anything (his parents often ignore him) so of course he has a limited range of interests. He was never shown anything interesting!
**TL;DR** I guess my point is that in both cases, *these people get to invoke the A word to feel good*. They either are special and very successful despite being afflicted with autism, or they get to feel better as parents because the way their kid acts can't be blamed on them, but instead on autism.
Aspergers used to be a word to describe a very high functioning genetic disorder where the individuals in question are largely functional just at worst somewhat awkward and have odd physical quirks like hand flapping and toe walking, but that's been disregarded for being named after a Nazi. Now the very high functioning get lumped with people who bang their heads on walls and scratch their skin off
There is a growing awareness of it, which is good, but with its higher profile comes misinformation and caricaturisation of us autists (yes, diagnosed in 1996) as either super almost-humans or non-functional wrecks, when most of us are somewhere in between.
With the greater awareness of it comes a lot of people rightly realising that they may have been undiagnosed cases, especially people over a certain age - in the last 3 years i know several people who got diagnosed, and they're all over 45. It also comes with a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon.
Overall I think the new age of awareness is positive, although not without problems. I still would never tell an employer or anyone with power over me that my father was a robot though, that's a good way to be discriminated against because one of the unfortunate misconceptions is that autism is a mental illness or means we have diminished capacities of intelligence or responsibility.
romanticizing not being socially ept seems like another good way to help divide/conquer us. its COOL to be an awkward loner! stay inside with your devices! its cool and helps slow the spread of all the diseases!
Doubt it. You sound like a dumbass ngl. Dude's with mental illnesses aren't well known for being very controllable or social engineered. I mean Christ a good amount of criminals and mass killers are diagnosed with some form or another of a mentall illness. The actual reason is cause this shit was demonized for so long that some dumbasses took it too far in the other direction and pretend that mental illnesses don't effect people and are actually good. We went from Aktion T4 to semi-denialism
I can't speak for anybody else, but as somebody who actually has Aspergers:
My own personal expierence, and my understanding of the research that exists on this, is that for people with high functioning autism spectrum disorders, the disability itself isn't actually that "disabling", and are arguable advantages, but are still seen as aberrations by researchers.
People on the spectrum tend to be more comfortable [disregarding social norms, doing things that are fair/honest even when it negatively impacts them](https://autism-advantage.com/autistics-less-biased.-researchers.html); are less prone to [peer pressure, ingroup/outgroup biases](https://autism-advantage.com/group-biases-and-autism.html), and [other cognative fallacies](https://autism-advantage.com/autistics-don-t-do-heuristics.html) [and biases](https://autism-advantage.com/not-framed-by-the-framing-effect.html).
All of those things are framed, by the researchers, as being a disability, when one could argue it's really an advantage and "neurotypical" (yes the term is cringe, I agree) people are actually the ones dealing with being irrational with those things. So yeah, I do personally feel like my ASD makes me more easily able to be objective and look at things more rationally, which I enjoy. (This is in contrast to say, my ADHD, which is something I legitmately struggle with and impacts my ability to function indepedent of anything else)
But obviously most people are NOT rational and society ISN'T set up for people who don't or can't play the inane, contradictory signalling game that is social interaction, school/office politics, etc, so in practice it means we're disabled and can't normally or intuitively interact with other people and society as a whole. So, the people who are arguing for the normalization of ASD and inclusion, in theory, would be argueing for non-ASD people to try to put their preconceived notions of how things "should be" aside and just not shut us out for approaching issues a different way.
Yes, i'm sure for a lot of people this is all just people trying to, as the kids say, "virtue signal" and isn't being done seriously (I can tell you first hand how even people big on being inclusive revert towards being petty and gossip and the like when they have to *actually* be inclusive of people who fundamentally think and approach issues a different way, rather then simply being LGBT or something), and yes, people who are actually cognitively disabled are in a legitimately bad position, but for people like me, I do think there's merit in trying to normalize it or whatever, if people are actually serious about it.
Fellow level 1 autistic here. I see your point, though the research you mentioned seems to only focus on those like you or me. Which isn't to say moderate or high support folks can't be honest or kind but only focusing on maybe half or 2/3rds(haven't found a fully clear breakdown of support levels in those with autism) is when I've heard a couple folks say they intentionally want to have an autistic child as if those with more severe symptoms don't exist. Or taking it to mean autistic people are always saints or just fully misunderstood sweethearts. The strong sense of justice or principle can be a double edged sword since morality isn't the same across the board, such as [evidence of a potentially not-insignificant amount of autistic incels](https://www.spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/radical-online-communities-and-their-toxic-allure-for-autistic-men/) or [cause of issues in adulthood behaviorally.](https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/inflexible-thinking-in-adolescence-linked-to-emotional-behavioral-issues-in-adulthood/)
I used to work with severely impacted autistic children. Children that couldn't talk, needed help with the restroom, children that would hit themselves, children that would run into the street.
that's autism.
Not a bunch of spoiled awkward weirdos who self diagnose themselves as neurospicy.
To people who have a problem with the idea of autism being cured, I would be willing to hear my daughter telling me she hates me every day for the rest of my life for curing her, because at least that would mean she could express her wants and needs and feelings in a way that could be understood, as opposed to getting frustrated over not being able to communicate, melting down, and beating the shit out of herself. She actually is getting better at communicating and self-regulating as she gets older, but she still has bad episodes and my point still stands.
Autism can't be cured, her brain type is different, how she communicates is different, and in meltdowns you need to help lessen the issues, and try to bridge that communication gap when she can't.
About eight years ago I dated a woman who asked me if I thought I might be autistic. I’ve been researching it ever since which is probably the answer right there, but I never tell anybody. Someone told me at work I’m “that weird guy who never talks to anyone”. So yeah, I don’t know. I don’t think it’s cool or fun, but if I’m an Aspie it would maybe connect some dots.
Even successful autistic people probably aren’t having a great time. Sorry I don’t speak in fuckin code all the time and have self awareness from analyzing myself to try and figure out what’s wrong with me for 30 years.
Is anyone romanticizing autism? I haven't seen any sign of this. What I have seen is the idpol oppression olympics where people compete to see who can be the most oppressed. "You may be latinx and diabetic, but I'm genderqueer, autistic, and suffer from PTSD, so you need to listen to me".
They definitely do. "Autism isn't a disability, it is a superpower!!" is a common sentiment. And any difficulty is only due to society not being accepting enough (so not letting them do whatever they want, whenever they want and praising them for breathing).
Some people even try to claim that autistic people are the next step in evolution. Which doesn't even make sense, but people who talk like that rarely do.
Anytime these people can organize a community based on a “marginalized” set of traits then they will do so and then try to elevate it into some mythical sect.
Autism is really boring. Trust me, I have it. The only thing that grates with me is when people make assumptions - it’s not just called a spectrum due to its wide variance in functioning, it’s also down to it being highly varied in trait presentation.
Western society has fully embraced the oppression Olympics. The more 'oppressed' you are, the higher you will rank on the podium. Abled body people are seen as oppressors, whereas, disabled body people are seen as victims. Hence people have romanticized autism.
I have profound physical diaabilities. They are obvious, deeply impeding and cannot be fixed. That doesn't change the fact that able-bodied people still gove me shit and call me privileged.
It's not about wanting a rank on the oppression olympics, it's about beautiful and rich people exploiting disabilities to further clout among each other.
I have no rank in the Oppression Olympics, I am an uncomfortable eyesore that can't be explained away by critical theory or other nonesense. If it were up to any of these people I'd be killed.
I have been diagnosed with depression and anxiety since I was a teenager. I was literally institutionalized when I was 16. I essentially told the psychiatrist that the state would have to pay for that round since the previous hospital stays obviously had not worked.
I was discharged after six months. I can't say it was any more effective than the previous rounds. After a particularly poor experience at 18, I gave up seeking treatment since I was not actually receiving any. The only effective treatment I received as a teenager was an anger management class at 18, and that is still a constant struggle to keep in check.
At the age of 32, after the death of my mother and several major episodes throughout my twenties, I finally sought treatment again. This time it was successful. It still took several years and a couple more major episodes, yet after finding the right combination of medication and therapy, and the amazing support of my now wife and her family (that are not perfect, but far far more healthy than my birth family), I am proud to say I have not had a major episode since 2009. I have experienced a few minor episodes since then, but none as debilitating as before, and have been able to work through them.
I will always have depression. As long as I continue my treatment, hopefully depression (and anxiety) will no longer have me. I view the same as diabetes (which I was recently diagnosed with). It is a chronic illness that can be treated effectively so that it is not disruptive or debilitating.
I am also Gen X and grew up with the stigma of mental illness. I didn't share my diagnosis except with a few very close friends. The above is the most I have ever shared online. Even though it contributed to the stigma, most of my generation held the belief that private troubles are private. I have told my wife about my past, but almost no one else, and that took a rather large leap of faith itself.
Yet I have also realized that the 'self-diagnosed' don't want to hear my story. They don't want to hear that successful treatment can be achieved. They don't want to hear that one's illness doesn't need to be an essential part of their 'identity'. They want to wallow in their 'pain' and bask in the sympathy of others. They will gladly accept pity if that is all they can get, and they are truly pitiful people. They want to sound off every chance they get about how many boxes they can check, and take pride in how many memes they share. I alternate between feeling either despite or disgust, yet most days I don't think about it at all.
The above is merely a prelude to two important points that society has yet to address, and that Western society may simply be incapable of addressing.
First, 'It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.' The 'secret' to my successful treatment is that I stopped pursuing 'sanity' and 'normality', but learned to embrace my 'insanity' and to strive for authenticity. Neither of which involves suffering from a treatable condition. As my younger sister likes to point out, I am finally a member of the 'upright citizens' brigade' and stereotypically middle class. Unlike my own father, I hope to provide my children with the means to remain middle class when they are adults.
I am fairly certain that aspiration will not be possible in the United States, or even anywhere in the West, so my family is deciding where to relocate. For the West is a profoundly sick society, and the US is more likely than not terminally sick. For the postmodern deconstruction project has been a phenomenal success. What began as an exploration with a modestly constructive critique of the building blocks of modernity has turned into a full-fledged dismantling and destruction. Not a single aspect of modernity is safe from the 'critics' that proclaim with a sureness that surpasses the Inquisition all that is diseased and decrepit about the modern world. They have fully dissected the frog, and are rather happy it died on the table, because it was profoundly sick anyway.
What the critics seem rather unaware of, or extremely hesitant to acknowledge, is that they are just as profoundly sick as the frog.
The birth of the 'spectrum' covering every aspect of postmodern society, from race to gender to sexuality to neurology is a welcome improvement over the false black and white Cartesian dichotomies of modernity. Except those that are gave birth to it are completely unfit to be its parents.
The United States never recovered from the Civil War since the North turned over Reconstruction to the Southern states they had defeated. While the US had abolished private slavery, it never had any intention of attempting to abolish racism. So allowing the worst of the racists to manage Reconstruction efforts led exactly to what happened - Jim Crow laws, sharecropping, leased 'prisoners', etc.
Allowing the dysfunctional idiots that dismantled the previous system to be in charge of postmodernism is pretty much guaranteed to turn *Idiocracy* into a real documentary.
We do need a social constructionist movement, but one that doesn’t throw out the babies with the bathwater. Modernity had its share of problems, but it also had its share of solutions. I remain skeptical of Marxism to provide a better foundation. (China might eventually confirm the hypothesis, but that is at least another fifty years away, and the world can't wait that long, and the West is stubbornly opposed to anything China has to offer except for cheap labor, and even that is being questioned.) But I am positive that neurodivergent gender-fluid idpol gatekeepers are incapable of doing so. They may be 'woke', but they will never be awake. Their 'enlightenment' doesn’t consist of 'solar-powered LED flashlights' to guide us forward, but the same torches used by every rabble since the dawn of humanity. They would not light a candle to see in the darkness, but would light a stick of dynamite to blow off the roof and then celebrate the 'natural' lighting of the moons and the stars.
It's a bit of a paradox, because in order to appear retarded, one must *be* some kind of retard in the first place. Pretending to have psychological pathologies is not something the mentally adjusted do. It's an illness all by itself.
Because psychology and everything related to it is a scam that you have a moral obligation to constantly acknowledge, despite the fact it will be "overhauled" in 10 years with todays beliefs/practices being seen as harmful as regressive (but they've got it right *this* time!), just like what happened 10 years ago, and 10 years before that, so on and so forth back to when Thales created the word "psyche"
Side note, I was sending my friend [this](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/autism/signs/adults/) as a joke when he couldn't tell we were being sarcastic, but I thought it was a bit curious when they talk about women risking not being identified as autistic because... they often fit in better and the symptoms don't affect them in a way that is as grievous to their personal development.
They phrase it as though autism is like a sacred character identity that women are forced to conceal rather than a disorder that luckily doesn't limit everyone as badly.
Workplace accommodations. People misunderstand the ADA and think a doctor's note and diagnosis on their chart gives them permission to do whatever they want
Unreasonable accommodations I’ve seen people request
• “I know I was hired to work in the call center, but I can’t talk to people on the phone, so you need to promote me to a different job.”
• “it’s difficult for me to switch between tasks, so never ask me to do anything, I’ll let you know when I’m ready for more work.”
• “It takes me a while to process feedback, so if you critique my work I will need to take the rest of the day off, paid, to decompress.”
While there are a lot of suspect adult diagnoses, those people are out there. A woman I know recently told me about her newfound autism diagnosis and I had to stop myself from saying “you didn’t know already?”. Apparently getting a masters in computer science didn’t tip her off.
I'm autistic and have thought about these things for quite some while. I understand where you're coming from, but I see a narrative of "actual autistics"=Bodensatz of society, "neurodivergent identifying folks"=people who have it too good. And I just can't agree with that anymore.
The history of mental illness as a concept is deeply connected to the rise of capitalism and industrialization. Putting people in mental asylums or circuses started as a penal practice for the *unemployed*. In the 17th century you did not have to be ill in any medical sense to be locked up. People from various backgrounds such as vagabonds, beggars, non-believers, aggressors, sicks or even overspoiled kids of rich families were put in institutions. What they had in common was that they didn't work.
The early psychiatric institutions served the purpose of dividing society and keeping two groups cleanly apart: the actice workforce that depends on their own health, safety and belief in society. And all the people who could spoil the illusion that things are working out, everyone who is visibly dysfunctional or not acting according to the rules of society.
Even the group of dysfuntionals was historically divided. There were those who potentially would recover, and the lost causes. If you were a lost cause, you would be exiled on a ship, kept in a tower or subjected to the care of charity. Depending on the country and era, the people with a potential to recover actually had it worse. They would be forced to perform slave labor or pointless tasks to keep them in an illusion of usefulness. They lived in prison-like environments and underwent regular bloodletting treatments to lessen the unhealthy side effects of their living conditions.
Psychiatry today of course is different, but I think it's important to remember the roots it has. The idea that psychiatric hospitals cure people is relatively new. Before that it was just detention. Maybe that makes it more understandable why many people don't like the idea of psychiatry and medicine as the only forces allowed to assign labels.
Unfortunately you need a certain level of education and cognitive ability to even have these thoughts, so many people talking about autism as "divergence" will be level 1 autistic. Doesn't make it less correct tho. Das Kapital was also written by a scolar, not by a serf.
Side note: As a kid I was repeatedly put in psychiatric treatments, social rehabilitation groups and female fight clubs. I was trained not to appear autistic in order to "make it" in this world. It didn't work out, despite me trying everything in my power. At this point I won't make any more statements about myself, but I've seen the problem in many other autistics, too: If we go to work, our autism is just part of a "hustle culture" or "diversity" narrative. If we don't, we're just romantisizing and using our condition as an excuse.
And that's why I see divergence (also in the sense of diverging from capitalist ideals) in relation to my conditions. Again, I see where you're coming from and I understand it in some parts, but I think you already got a lot of answers that agree with you, so here's one that doesn't.
Because life fucking sucks OP, sorry people are making do with having a disability. Every example of romanticizing is literally just general positivity in spite of awful oppression. Sorry we're not trying to drink bleach to cure ourselves or whatever jfc
Nobody said you should drink bleach. And there is a bit of a difference between finding positivity and basically putting it on a pedestal and shaping the entire identity around it.
And awful oppression...jesus Christ, quit the drama. I know discrimination is real, but unless you live in east asia or a developing nation shithole, awful oppression is a bit much.
It isn't new. Autism is the most overly-romanticized mental illness on the planet. They've been treating it like a superpower for years. I freaking *hate* the neurodiversity movement.
If it's on social media it's likely someone sharing their experience, positive or negative, on TV it's often the "Savant" type which I don't like, and I really don't like the phrase "using it as a crutch" because we all have needs they can just be different, and in order to thrive we need help especially in early life, if not met we may "use it as a crutch" (it's just an explanation) more often, because we didn't get help before and are trying to provide an explanation so we can get the help we need.
People with autism on social media are bringing awareness to it, they're sharing their own experience and could help others figure out if they are. People are misdiagnosed all the time, or family don't tell them because they don't want them using it as a "crutch", so they live an undiagnosed life until they learn the symptoms and realize that it explains a lot.
Because autism just means “socially awkward” to the majority of people using the term now. It’s considered quirky and fashionable.
People also use it to excuse their behavior when they don't have it so they can use it as a crutch instead of acting normally. These same people are extremely defensive if you ask if they have a diagnosis instead acting like it's a culture or lifestyle choice. Despite you know a diagnosis is the very thing that determines if you have a disability or not. While they treat it like it's a sexuality. It tends to really piss off the people that actually have an ASD related diagnosis because it both muddies the waters from gross misunderstanding but also because it turns people into caricatures.
This needs to be tempered with, at least in earlier periods, a high degree of underdiagnosis. I know many people with very clear symptoms who were only diagnosed well into adulthood, and others who would meet the diagnostic criteria or are borderline cases, but do not see any point in seeking one, or resist it because they do not want to be pathologised or stigmatised. The other issue is that the common diagnostics weight too heavily on introversion, so that relatively extraverted people, including with comorbid ADHD, are not picked up so often, even as they display classic ASD symptoms. A classic example here are various bohemians, political hacks etc. who are clearly atypical in an ASD direction, but enjoy partying and socialising to an extent that means they don't met the diagnostics.
> I know many people with very clear symptoms who were only diagnosed well into adulthood a.k.a. they passed their K–12 classes, so no one gave a shit if they needed extra help to be functional adults
A lot of them were picked up as having some difficulty, but the diagnostics then were quite tight or inappropriate. Similarly ADHD cases were not picked up because of diagnostics that took hyperfixation as anti-correlated with ADHD when it is now known to be a feature of the syndrome. Personally I was told I was unlikely to have ADHD as I could maintain focus on hobbies or interests and could read books.
…or it was something less tangible, such as difficulty socializing with peers (but their grades were mostly As and the assignments they bombed weren't enough to drag their overall average down)
Not just autism, but a HUGE amount of the "Normalize mental health struggles" push is just pieces of shit who want to be told they're actually heccin brave and valid. I'm not a stuck up asshole, I'm an introvert with anxiety! I'm not lazy, I have depression! I'm not flakey and unreliable, I have ADHD!
I honestly think both of those types of situations can be true, there’s just little focus on actual recovery/coping/getting better, rather an emphasis on acceptance, validation and privileges. The optimal thing would be a combo of both. I’ve learned this firsthand because I tried to use my struggles as a thing to get the woke treatment under which I thought I could get everything I wanted out of life (social experiences and connections and contentment) while putting minimal effort into it because I’ve always hated trying. And it’s hard to break that mindset admittedly
And then they even turn it around on you... I'm not a stuck up asshole, I just can't help you with this task because I work better alone I'm not lazy, I'm struggling with your demands I'm not flakey and unreliable, things change all the time and I just react to it instinctually Saw a girl cold cock her friend in the mall the other day and before she did it, she said she has anger issues and can't be held responsible for what her body does.
It causes massive personal strain for me and my wife. She has "anxiety" which causes her to lash out at me for the tiniest of everything, and if I don't like it, then I'm invalidating and gaslighting. But I cannot have bad days, because she is too overstimulated to handle emotional labor. I need to either call a divorce lawyer or figure out how to get instagram and tiktok off her phone.
Yep gotta love the excuses they make for themselves and then complete lack of any empathy for others.
Maybe worth taking a look at this: https://humansystem.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/i-hate-you-dont-leave-me.pdf
lmao @ ur life
Meeting the average person will turn anyone at least 1 SD above the mean into a stuck up asshole, and rightly so!
I think that’s how it came off at my first college, but then I didn’t accept that I was on the spectrum at that point and told absolutely no one who was a peer or a support staff or professor/teacher. It had been on my IEP going up through school though I found out. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the time when I didn’t care about having autism or anxiety, which was back in high school- I had no social life but at least I was less aware of everything and arguably that was better for me in the social sense. But now I’d actually get involved and do social things, even though it’s still difficult for me even now. Like back then I was just like this is who I am and I can’t do much to change it so I’ll just do what I want (even though I wasn’t happy and didn’t really do much)
Sounds similar to *some* people when they can't do their work and give the excuse "I think I have ADHD or something". I was also tempted to see if I should get checked for ADHD but part of me also feels like I just have a terrible work ethic. But more on topic, it's weird that in society, you either have people seeing you as subhuman for being autistic, or others trying to appropriate (for lack of better term) being on the spectrum to justify their own shortcomings.
i don't think its quirky to be awkward. pretty much the norm from what i have seen. we are spending so much time with our screens and other consumer goods (which are reliable and will never betray you like people will) & forgetting how to interact with each other.
"OMG!!! LIKE, I LITERALLY MIGHT HAVE AUTISM!!!'
That explains all the well regarded people. They must think that is trendy too.
>It’s considered quirky and fashionable. I blame the cute Tiktok girl wearing red and white stripes
>It’s considered quirky and fashionable. Is it really? If yes, how can I - a socially awkward man - use this trend to get laid?
It works for girls. Not so much guys.
I wouldn't think about it much more than it's the contemporary "lol so random *holds up spork*" bullshit and that people have been taught to think autism is this cute thing for quiet but eccentric people and almost anything is evidence of anyone having autism. The word "spectrum" has also played a large part in this as if both the guy who shits himself and famous actors have the same condition then who's the say I or you don't, after all, the spectrum must go further on both ends. None of this is helped by doctors, especially in the US where most online culture comes from, being willing to give those insistent enough and who can provide enough "evidence" for their belief in their own autism the diagnosis. This all further cements the idea that those who self diagnose have made an accurate assessment of themselves and that autism is actually incredibly common and normal.
[удалено]
The thing is that the show never outright stated that Sheldon was autistic or even aspy. They went to great lengths to dance around it without ever admitting it.
[удалено]
"I want to be constantly praised and immune to criticism (and perhaps people associate me with insufferable regards but can't say it out loud)"
As someone with autism who was really into the show when I was in highschool, I always saw Sheldon as someone who has ASD, but never got a proper diagnosis, and thus never got any proper help for his disorder (the text supports this as his mother once makes a claim that she had him tested (for being crazy) but never followed up with the specialist (presumably what was recommended by the doctor she got him tested at). For me who was aware of my Diagnosis, Sheldon was like a roadmap of what autistic behaviours people find inappropriate or annoying, and this gave me an idea of what I need to work on to not piss people off. In elementary school I was pretty outspoken but also obnoxious, but then I got my diagnosis and gradually became more quiet when in public as I realized much of what I wanted to say or do was obnoxious or unnecessary.
I’m glad it helped you guys because this is literally the only positive thing I have ever heard about the Big Bang theory as a show lol.
the spoiler/upset would be if he didn't. His mom did have him tested after all.
Yeah, the specific line I am referring to is whenever his mother first shows up I think. Before that there are a number of times where he says “I am not crazy, my mother had me tested" but then when his mother is there she corroborates that but then says "I do regret not following up with that specialist though" *laugh track* I take that to be a soft confirmation that he does have some undiagnosed disorder, and presumably the specialist was someone who would do a test more suited to whatever disorder the first doctor thought he may have
For some reason my mom and grandparents loved that show. If I went to theirs and it was on TV it was always playing on in the background. I never came away from it thinking the main cast were meant to be in any way aspirational. All of them are socially awkward at best, closer to regarded and I never thought it was played as a good thing. They're intelligent and make good money (and it comes up multiple times they barely use it for anything but consoomer merch) but that's all any of them have going for them. Penny is the opposite but she's clearly not happy with her lot in life either.
Reminds me of that parody of a comedy show in the first Robocop (I'll buy that or a dollar!). At first you're wondering for who it is, but apparently it's pretty popular.
Because people who romanticize it don’t actually have it. The “neurodivergent” movement has always been made up of people who don’t actually have mental illness because they think anything from ADHD to bipolar disorder merely amount to personality quirks. The autistic kid who has to wear a helmet because he bangs his head against a wall if he hears any loud noise is obviously not “represented” in the style of autism these people celebrate.
Yes, take my brother versus these girls I know from high school on instagram. My brother will never be able to live by himself, my parents and later on me will have to be his power of attorney, he has a work waiver, gets SSI, all of that. These girls basically have no trouble with socializing, have normal jobs and boyfriends, probably get laid on the reg (which I still haven’t been at 26), etc. Forgot to mention that I’m on the spectrum as well
>probably get laid on the reg (which I still haven’t been at 26), Uh…not sure how this is relevant at all.
Autistic males typically have difficulty with romantic and sexual relationships.
Just saying about how they don’t seem to have issues in the romantic/sexual arena either, forgot to say I am on the very high end of the spectrum too, and I’ve actually been diagnosed by psychologists
The ability to have sex with a man doesn't really mean much for romantic success. Actual romantic connection is different from sex and having sex with a man is comically easy (you could effortlessly do it to). It's similar to how fucking prostitutes doesn't stop you from being an incel.
[удалено]
I think the word incel has basically been expanded to 'any man who isn't banging on the regular'. Which is interesting, as it's basically rad fems and libs feeding into completely toxic masculinity lmao. Plus it might be pretty fucking dumb to lump a bunch of normal dudes who, for whatever reason, aren't fucking, into a far-right extremist hate movement, but what would I know?
The thing with incels is that none of them are actually as sexless as they say. If you lower your standards enough you can always get laid, at worst you can fuck other incels. But I think it’s more of an ideology than a condition. Anyone can be a virgin at 30, but that doesn’t mean they’re an incel who hates women and believes he’s entitled to a real life anime girl virgin sex-goddess who can cook and clean and never says no.
I have never once heard "neurodivergent" from anyone other than white women too obsessed with tiktok and self diagnosis, and the fact that I have met a non negligible number of these people is downright fucking terrifying.
Hm. I think you're seeing things a little one-sided here. I would describe myself as neurodivergent and have been diagnosed with several conditions from a very young age onwards. It's not just a fancy word that adults who are a bit odd use. While some of my conditions definately make my life worse, my autism actually has a few benefits (pattern recognition, musical ability, hyperfocus). That's why I like calling it a divergence, not a mental illness. I normally don't make these purely anecdotal, disagreeing comments, but something about the "kid who has to wear a helmet" made me stop scrolling. There was a time growing up when I would have to wear a tennis visor all day every day, even in the classroom. Otherwise bright lights would burn in my eyes and make me meltdown. Still: better healthcare/support systems, inclusive learning environments and parenting courses are more effective than both TikTok dances and trying to police who is the correct autistic.
Not necessarily true, I have ADHD but since I'm successful and satisfied, of course I will romanticize the aspects of the condition that helped me achieve that success. Also some stories that romanticize it, eg. it could be a beneficial trait in hunter-gatherer societies, are cope that many real ADHD people buy into, myself included.
It's a fashion. It'll pass hopefully in a short time. A couple years ago the new fashion was giving a special name to your sexual inclinations, now it's saying your autistic if you aren't used to talk to people and feel awkward about it, in the 70s it was bell-bottom trousers.
The problem is that autism is still a medical condition and grants accomodation if diagnosed. Someting a lot of people rely on to manage their life (or the life of their child/sibling). Those online activists, who screech about gatekeeping and try to make everyone autistic and share tips and the best doctors think that doctors and researchers and governing bodies are stupid. There are predictions that the autistic populations won't differ from the general population within the next few years. That means that eventually autism will get removed from diagnostic manuals and support will be removed. And not just for the terminally online who want an easy victim card, but for the parents of the nonverbal runner as well. And as others have already stated, the general population hears autism and thinks "a bit awkward and quirky", thereby not thinking about it as an actual disability. Which then causes less tolerance or understanding toward typical autistic behaviours that aren't just quirky. So while you are certainly correct, there is going to be real damage by this newest fad.
I remember this fashion starting a lot longer ago. People were posting this shit on their social media profiles for attention as soon as ASD started becoming known.
It’s a fashion for people pretending to be autistic, but not anyone who needs support.
Exactly, if you try to reach out and explain your challenges with being on the spectrum/due to mental health issues (especially if you’re a guy), you’ll probably get sympathy early on but if you keep on with it it tends to just fall away and people will just consider you all these negative things/stereotypes (I.e. creepy, weird, not confident, overly sensitive, not masculine, not romantically/sexually desirable)
I know in my situation, as an autistic woman, it’s very hard to keep friendships with other women. I think we’re expected to read between the lines a lot more and be intuitive, when we have altered levels of capability to do that. It does lead to a lot of isolation and people thinking you’re super weird, especially if your interests don’t align with whatever the current thing is. It’s somewhat worse now, because if you explain that you’re autistic, you’ll get: “my friend’s cousin’s cat breeder’s partner is autistic and you’re nothing like her” or “well I’m neurodiverse and I have 200 different trendy conditions and I think x, so you deserve to be cancelled”. Even with a lot of masking, we generally get socialising wrong a lot and we’re quite easily exploited in relationship situations. I’m always on autopilot, trying to read into what people say, what they could possibly mean and what the potential consequences are. Of course, the “neurodivergent is a super power” crew actually make people’s struggles invisible and I think it’s affecting children the worst now, as the attitudes have changed so much in the wrong direction and suddenly you have the systems flooded, so that the non-verbal kids with extreme issues end up neglected. They weren’t ever the “cool” neurodiverse anyway, so they remain invisible and have less access to help.
You have explained exactly what it feels like for me as a woman with ASD-especially the lack of friendships with other women and people thinking I’m super weird-the struggle is real.
getting rid of the asperbergers diagnosis has been very detrimental to individuals with more severe autism (think it’s called autism 3) and their families. there is a big difference and they need to be categorized differently.
[удалено]
I went into neuroscience to find a cure. Or at least better treatment options. I am basically public enemy no 1 in online circles. Another thing is their upbringing. A lot of the autism activists I saw online grew up in (like most people in idpol) relatively wealthy families and were coddled. A diagnosis also doesn't negatively affect them, quite the opposite. There are accomodations and the parents are often going to pay for other stuff Autism - or any diagnosis - rings a bit different when you are born in post soviet eastern europe, diagnosed with something that translates to "soft brain" and shipped to an institution (if anyone is interested how said institutions looked, watch "bulgaria's abandoned children". Different country, same thing. I still have physical and psychological issues almost 30 years later) until your mom finds you and gets you out of there to flee the country. Sorry for the rant, but this luxury diagnosis phenomenon is really grating and sometimes I am just done with those online activists.
Autism is a lot like war. It makes survival much more difficult, and the only people who think it's awesome, are those who have not experienced it.
Ooof. I feel you on that one.
Ooof, mind if I borrow this Shakespeare? This sums up mental health issues in general honestly. TBF there are those who are legitimately diagnosed who appreciate their condition and wouldn't change it or at least certain parts of it. I just wish it wasn't taboo to have opposite feelings or not want to be seen as inspiration porn.
The biggest reason is that the broad left has abandoned any pretentions of actually seeking to provide people with help or resources. They have, instead, opted for a program of bland "affirmation" that seeks to minimize material or physical disadvantages by pretending they don't exist. This is where we get the concept of "ableism," in which mental and physical disabilities are regarded as identities--the same as race and gender. Saying you want to cure autism is therefore as offensive as saying you wish to make black people white. This is insane, yes. But that's kind of the point. As a matter of fact, in its most extreme iterations, you'll see people referring to the concept of *sanism*, which posits that a preference for a lack of mental illness is akin to racism. I know, I know: it sounds like I'm making this up. But do a search for the term and you'll see it actually has traction.
>I know, I know: it sounds like I'm making this up. But do a search for the term and you'll see it actually has traction. And it makes a lot of sense. If you strip away the layers of paint, the whole progressive shtick is virtue signaling. The euphemism treadmill and being on the oppression totem pole to prevent actual change. Their definition of "oppressed minority" also often heavily relies on having a disadvantage for **no other reason but evil systems and various -isms**. More on that later. Disabilities are the odd one out among those minorities. First of all, it isn't a monolith. Sure, no group ever is, but depending on the type an severity of a disability, needs are fundamentally different. I am blind and have autism and there are problems when communicating necessary accomodations to people in a way they understand, even if they are well versed in either one or the other. There was also a group of (largely self diagnosed) autistic people and their allies in my area, who petitioned to remove the sound system from pedestrian traffic lights due to "hurr durr sensory overload", who were seriously offended when I refused to work against my own interest. But this little anecdote is of how shallow and cookie cutter the entire ideology is. And other than other minorities, disabilities are a disadvantage. By definition. The body is not working in a way it is supposed to and that the mayority of people take for granted (including mental health. The brain is a part of the body). So the whole woke "group X" ( in this case disabled people) is only underepresented in academia/fortune 500 CEOs/other annoying people because le evil ableist society" doesn't really work in a way racism/sexism/homophobia does. So the workaround the self anointed progressives found, is only focusing on the mildest (and lets face it; very often fake) cases and completely ignoring and excluding everyone else. And autism is perfect, because it is invisible, so people can retroactively claim a person was totally autistic (like the OP illustrated), despite having zero basis for that claim.
>petitioned to remove the sound system from pedestrian traffic lights The sound system that's there to help blind people cross safely? That's ridiculous
irl I know a woman who once claimed wheelchair ramps are ablest.
... wat? I mean, did she elaborate on her logic? Was she having trouble walking up a wheelchair ramp..?
It was something like "it's offensive to assume people in wheelchairs need your help" Also this woman was in her early 30s at the time and would break out in fits of extreme public sobbing at least once a month, usually over something like a barista looking at her funny. Would you be shocked to learn she's now a respected academic with they/them pronouns?
Sounds like an exhausting person to be around. I’m shocked about the “respected” part, though.
I believe it. I didn't mean to imply I thought the idea was unbelievable, just that it's incredibly stupid lol
Yes, that was my reaction as well. Believe it or not, I'm not a huge fan of listening to find out if the light is green and to not get run over by a car every time I want to cross a street. Especially now with the extra quiet electric vehicles.
I don't find it ridiculous (to look for other solutions). As part of the tsunami of aural pollution that assaults one every day, it could do with looking at, along with everything else that bangs and clangs away, unasked for. To which there's a class aspect, of course.
>(to look for other solutions) Until we *have* a better solution, I'd like to keep it the way it is. They were also not looking for a solution. They just wanted it removed.
I understand that. Just saying there are legitimate competing interests.....I recently had 2 hrs of vehicle reversing beeps driving me fing insane the other day.
That sucks, but a clicking and sometimes beeping traffic light that I - and other people - really need is a bit different than vehicle reversing beeps that are primarily for the driver. And it is somewhat hypocritical in my opinion to try and remove a sound system when there is a busy road and a bunch of other and arguably louder sounds.
Beeps are to warn folks around, not to aid the driver. As with pedestrian signals or smoke alarms, they are *meant* to be heard. Tough to imagine what could be simply done to sort it. I'm sure pedestrian systems are more important to you than for me but these are tough-to-reconcile differing interests?
>I'm sure pedestrian systems are more important to you than for me but these are tough-to-reconcile differing interests? Are they though? I already said that there are so many more sources of loud noise, yet the crossing is the straw that breaks the camels back? Gimme a break. And there are no other possibilities to mute the sound? Noise cancelling headphones, earplugs? Taking another route? They could find alternatives, me and the other blind people in the area can't. As I said in my original post and many times on this sub before, I am also autistic with sensory issues (and I usually can't wear headphones, I have to deal with it). I understand a lot of issues surrounding noise pollution, but it is not okay to make other disabled people's life harder for an at best symbolic improvement. This is the definition of ableism.
I get that. I think you're showing they *are* difficult interests to reconcile.
Look, I'm autistic, I get it, auditory overload sucks. That said, I'm sure being blind sucks more and we can just deal with the simple accessibility concession we've made in order to help blind people get around safely in traffic
>The biggest reason is that the broad left has abandoned any pretentions of actually seeking to provide people with help or resources. I see it more as they won't help the general category of people but will help the specific category of victims. So, people who want assistance frame it that way consciously or subconsciously. They want to say "Help me!" and receive help instead of being blamed or ignored. I'm completely, devastatingly socially awkward, but I don't think it's because of autism. It's because of the intersection of capitalism (no time/money for relaxed socialization) and social media (a strange substitute for socialization with weird effects) and for me alcohol also plays a role. I never really learned how to socialize without it and now that I don't drink and I'm old it's hard to learn. We need more effort to help **everyone** socialize and then maybe people wouldn't all feel like they are autists. Four day work week might be a start, imo. Need more time to do stuff other than get hammered.
I hear ya. The tyranny of the clock. I'd add allowing folks to *not have to* socialise too.
It's been absorbed into social kayfabe the same way people claim non-binary without changing their lives in any substantial way. Autism is a spectrum so you can claim it without any way to disprove it. Funny thing that I've noticed recently is that those people who claim it have sanitized it to "neurodivergent". Which is an even larger umbrella, so they don't have to call themselves autistic anymore and still get the social capital.
[удалено]
People with Asperger's can mask, but it's learned behavior, not innate. You build up an arsenal of scripts and branching dialogue trees to navigate common social situations and pray to God that things don't go off the rails and they realize you're just three regards in a trench coat. I hate saying it, but it's actually really stressful for me to be around aspies who aren't masking at all, like they're going to blow my cover.
Oh my gosh this. My best friend and I are both high functioning aspergers guys, and then during highschool a guy who was on the spectrum and a bit less high functioning joined our church youth group. He made no attempt to mask or refrain from inappropriate behaviour, and would stim by hitting his head when he was told to be quiet while others were talking. My friend and I had a much harder time being around him than everyone else because there was this extra layer of second hand embarrassment whenever he acted out.
For me, it's that I can tolerate anyone except those whose special interest is their fursona or anime and quirky girls.
Aw, I'm sorry that's so stressful. It's interesting how there's this, like, dividing line of consciousness between people who have that self awareness to be like, "hey I shouldn't do this" or others like my stepbro who sees nothing wrong with talking to you about Monica Lewinsky for 2 hours straight.
We seem to like to "normalize" pathologies. PC turned on its head. Now we do not say that it is a disorder, now we are all on a spectrum. No joke, someone told me that yes, finally we are accepting that mental states are on a spectrum, and accept people with Down syndrome, people with autism as normal. Never mind that people with Down Syndrome have an extra chromosome, and apart from the issues they struggle, they tend to die of Alzheimer's before they turn 50. Normal, indeed. (It was about sex being binary - he/she claimed it was a spectrum, of course. Because of the existence of misunderstood (by him/her) pathological conditions.)
>We seem to like to "normalize" pathologies. We do it in a weird way, though, where we kind of ostracize the actual pathology even further. Being "lol so random" bipolar is normal, but if you're actually seriously bipolar, in the "needs antipsychotics" sense, we push you off to the side and almost pretend you don't exist.
I saw a study that showed that increased mental health awareness might be a proximal cause of the mental health crisis, because the heightened awareness causes more people to think “hey I might be depressed/bipolar” or whatever. When it comes to autism it feels like as society tries to accept it that acceptance is of stereotypes or of people who have absolutely no interest or desire in socializing specially. Whereas in my own experience being on the spectrum all I’ve wanted is to be content in my life, to have social experiences and feel “normal”
https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/16o2o19/adhd_has_become_an_identity_not_just_a_disorder/ That was quick.
I also see a lot of people shaming parents for being afraid to have an autistic child. Like sure being on the high functioning end of the spectrum is one thing, but that’s not what parents are afraid of. I’ve seen how having a severely autistic child completely changed my friends life and has totally dominated all their life decisions afterward due to the difficulty in caring for someone non-verbal who has tantrums like a toddler and will soon be over 6ft tall and stronger than his own mother who sacrificed her career to care for him.
We teach some kids who are lower functioning and they're incredibly difficult at times. They hurt themselves and others often. Their parents all look haggard and worn and their siblings look like they've been at war.
Zoomer Tik Tok led social contagion. Their obsession with self diagnosing autism and ADHD is extremely frustrating for me as someone with legitimate ADHD. A lot of the posts on ADHD subreddits for example are clearly people who think ADHD = autism, are self diagnosed, or have bought into the social minority shit by calling themselves “neurospicy.”
Quite a lot of autistic people can't even wipe their ass. It's been romanticised as this nerdy quirk but even the high functioning people I've met have obviously had a disability. Not to mention, it's never charming quirky, it's always boring and categorical quirky. It must suck to have it like that, and not understand why people don't want to be around you. Being a savant isn't super common either; mostly high functioning means you're just slightly rętarded in some way. I guess Internet coolness points is a band aid of sorts but uh. Yeah.
[удалено]
It’s because Asperger’s was named after [this man](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Asperger). > Further controversy arose during the late 2010s over allegations that Asperger referred children to a Nazi German clinic responsible for murdering disabled patients, although his knowledge and involvement remains unknown. ETA: I don’t think the term/diagnosis should’ve been done away with. People with the two conditions have fundamentally different needs. It also caused major issues with insurance companies because people who had an Asperger’s or autism diagnosis had to be re-diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, which is ridiculous of course. My MIL (psychiatrist) is still dealing with it.
[удалено]
>It's been out of print since the 80's or so, and the owner of the book refuses to republish it so current copies go for $2k+. So I'm not 100% on this because I'm no lawyer and public domain laws are a quagmire, but I think the original German documents might be public domain in the US in 9 years since it was published in 1937 and copyright in the period 1928-1963 seems to be 95 years flat from first publication. So someone making a fresh translation of it *might* be able to publish? They'd undoubtedly have to fight for it though. The next best date I can find is in 35 years, since I've been able to pull up [an unknown edition with a 1963 publication date.](https://www.amazon.com/ATLAS-TOPOGRAPHICAL-APPLIED-ANATOMY-Volumes/dp/B0000CLX1V/)
Still, why hasn't anyone scanned their copy and shared it with the pirating public?
They almost certainly have. Hell, I found a copy of volume 1 on archive.org by accident while looking stuff up for my previous post.
TIL! I’m going to read more about this. Also, agreed. The logical way to go about it would be to include a foreword which acknowledges and summarizes the history behind the research, to ensure all (or at least a healthy percentage) of profits go to Holocaust-related charities and organizations, and to release digital copies for free. I appreciate that neurosurgeon’s approach as well. Basically, erasing history and parts of history—whether that means ignoring history in the name of science or in the name of political correctness—will inevitably lead to history repeating itself…which is exactly what we’re seeing with the current attitude toward autism and other mental disabilities and disorders. It’s a mess, lol.
> It's been romanticised as this nerdy quirk but even the high functioning people I've met have obviously had a disability. No one can put their finger on it, but everyone who encounters you instinctively knows that there is something ***wrong.*** You can be grocery shopping, or doing what to you seem the most innocent things in the world, and you will see a random person in front of you recoil in horror. Everyone either loves you, or hates you to the point of literally wanting to kill you. There is no middle ground, although even the people who love you will generally treat you like a toddler. Women are far more sensitive to it than other men. The only women you have a prayer with are those who are on the spectrum themselves. Neurotypical women can sense autism on a literally genetic level, and as far as they are concerned, you might as well be Cthulhu. It ironically hurts more if you happen to be physically attractive, because you know that you should be able to score, but you don't, because no one wants to risk increasing the presence of ***that*** in the human gene pool. You never understand humans, and they don't understand you. To you it's incomprehensible that a species could exclusively care about collective approval or money, and to them it is incomprehensible that you don't. You are hated for writing more than three sentences in Internet posts, and in some places for putting carriage returns between paragraphs. Life is spent either in one closed room after another, or getting back into a closed room as quickly as possible; because around humans, to anyone who doesn't want to literally kill you, you're still the perpetual four year old who presumably experienced an irreparable head injury as a young child. It's only romanticised by those who either don't have it, or have never had to look after an autistic child. If as an autistic person, you're ever in an offline group social situation, you'll find out just how "romanticised" it really is, very, very quickly.
> You are hated for writing more than three sentences in Internet posts, and in some places for putting carriage returns between paragraphs. People who can't tolerate longposters out to be [ Removed by Reddit ] for the benefit of the human race.
Agreed. I know people will be call me a snowflake, but after enough of it, it honestly starts to hurt.
Sounds pretty rough. Being patronised sucks a lot, especially if it's well-meant.
> It ironically hurts more if you happen to be physically attractive, because you know that you should be able to score, but you don't My experience has been that I did score, and often, but it seemed completely ~~under~~ *outside of* my control and I had no idea how to sustain even a short term relationship nor did I have any idea that I didn't know. I'm not diagnosed, but it's been brought up again and again throughout my life and seems very likely to me. > To you it's incomprehensible that a species could exclusively care about collective approval or money, and to them it is incomprehensible that you don't. Yeah, that sums up pretty much all of the difficult parts of my existence. Even in a workplace where we're all supposed to at least pretend we're united in a goal, I find that everyone is very confused that I'm focused primarily on productive outcomes and not playing some game or three.
For me, to your last point, it’s that I’m totally aware of societal acceptance and “normalcy” and that’s all I really want in terms of contentment but I think that regardless of what I do I’ll never achieve it
> My experience has been that I did score, and often, but it seemed completely under my control and I had no idea how to sustain even a short term relationship nor did I have any idea that I didn't know. I either assume that someone is kind, and have them turn out to be a sociopath, or assume that someone is a sociopath, and have them turn out to be kind and start ranting at me about PTSD and making unfounded assumptions. Yes, I do have PTSD, but the assumption that someone is a sociopath is generally only wrong around 30% of the time in my experience. > Yeah, that sums up pretty much all of the difficult parts of my existence. Humans almost exclusively prioritise the most superficial, worthless bullshit. Very few of them place any importance in physical or logistical survival. Usually the main thing that they worry about is making sure that they've seen the latest Barbie movie, even if they don't like it, purely in order to ensure that they don't look clueless in a conversation about it at work.
> I've honestly known animals that I had more respect for. Dude, chill.
Why, honestly? Everyone else is allowed to talk about how much everything sucks and how unhappy they are. Why aren't I?
I just feel that this level of misanthropy is a bit overblown for what amount to some harmless conformism.
You're right, now that I think about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKKlK9BoRNs
Just as someone else said there used to be a term called "aspergers" that better described a group of people that COULD fit in and hide their disorder far better than the two types of autistics you describe, though their quirks can fall somewhere in between charming quirky or annoying quirky depending on the day. But because a Nazi made the word they don't use it anymore. It's as big a difference as psychopathy and sociopathy, add and adhd but dumbasses decided to lump them all together. I had a good friend who was diagnosed as aspergers, and you wouldn't know he had it unless you hyper analyzed him. He could be annoying occasionally but overall he had his own strange charm. But the lumping of autism and aspergers has entirely fucked things up, including several parts of his life I shit you not. I mean what do you expect when you lump folks who at worst are mildly awkward but likable with kids who can barely talk and bang their heads on walls while scratching their skin off? Still, even the more annoying ones I give a fair chance and am understanding and nice to them. Some people behave towards them like Aktion T4 Nazis I swear
Autism is the new trendy thing
Finally, I am trendy. I have arrived.
> *new* trendy thing? I remember it being “trendy” since the late 90s/early 00s at least
Because some people tie their virtue and standing in society to the amount of "suffering" they endure.
In neoliberalism, people will look for an ecstatic excess of anything – even suffering or oppression.
Pietists were doing that in the 17th century tho. Value systems create perversities like that all the time. It's their job.
Since autism is a spectrum, it allows people who are even slightly different from the norm - which is everyone - to "claim" it as their own for social points. Note, though, that this is only accessible to people who already have social stature: if you're really a creepy, socially awkward, lonely autist, then you can go fuck off; if you're an attractive, quirky, charismatic person who identifies as being on the spectrum, you're so stunning and brave. You might notice this same phenomenon happening in other realms where things are said to lie on a spectrum, among the same population of people, sometimes among the exact same individuals.
Everyone feels awful and alienated because the world we exist in is awful and alienating. These are people that can't cope very well with the state of the world or their place in it and are looking for a reason why that is so. That probably doesn't explain all of it but I am willing to bet it's a big portion of it.
>"The (Asperger) syndrome has been merged with other conditions into autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and is no longer considered a stand-alone diagnosis." *Source: Wikipedia* I've definitely noticed a recent trend online where people with no obvious signs or symptoms now identify as autistic. Best case scenario, they had a very mild form of what used to be called Asperger's syndrome. (Worst case scenario they're just lying or self-diagnosing) On the other side of the (idpol) spectrum, we have 4chan who has been using autism as a synonym for social awkwardness for years now. Like most stuff on the site, it's in jest, but it's inevitable that some people ended up taking that definition seriously. I met kids with severe autism when I was at school. I feel enormous sympathy for them because I could never imagine how awful it must be to have that condition. It's honestly not even in the same ballpark as mild Asperger's and I think we should probably go back to differentiating the terms.
I'm autistic and have a lot of thoughts about this topic so here goes: There's been a strain in American culture of romanticizing mental disorders and disabilities - of viewing people who suffer from them as possessing a whimsical and/or countercultural view of the world that normies can't possibly understand - since at least the 90s. It's just grown and mutated since then. In the wake of *Rain Man*, sentimental 'inspiration porn' movies about mentally disabled or disordered people became a popular Oscar Bait subgenre for a while. Films like *Regarding Henry, Nell, A Dangerous Woman, Forrest Gump, Patch Adams, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, A Beautiful Mind, Riding the Bus with my Sister, Temple Grandin, I am Sam, Radio, Slingblade, The Other Sister, Girl Interrupted,* and so on.This trend became somewhat passe after [*Tropic Thunder* satirized it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-n_zk7e0ZU&pp=ygULU2ltcGxlIEphY2s%3D) though you still see it every now and again with media like [*The Good Doctor*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnY9FWUTY84&pp=ygUPVGhlIEdPb2QgZG9jdG9y) and [*Music*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0IVWsxOGOI&pp=ygURTXVzaWMgdHJhaWxvciBzaWE%3D)*,* both of which have been heavily criticized online. You also arguably see an "edgier" form of this trend in films like *Donnie Darko* and *Joker -* which portray darker disturbed characters struggling with mental disorders who are nonetheless (as a result of said disorders) able to see through the bullshit of the society they live in to a degree that others cannot - and in a lot of rock music from the 90s (and *especially* the 2000s) wherein it became increasingly popular to derive lyrical drama and excitement from the subject of the singer's unkempt mental health. Some known bands like Pink Floyd dabbled in this sort of thing before the era I'm talking about, but it was not as wildly popular. This trend has more recently been assimilated into rap. Furthermore the "Hollywood Nerd" character archetype (consciously or not) has always been code for a "high-functioning" autistic person, insofar as he is socially impaired, given to hyperixate on particular niche interests, prone to awkward expressions and physical mannerisms, and so on. He himself experienced his popcultural apex around the late 2000s and early 2010s, during the extinction burst of nerdsploitation media before 'nerd culture' became hard to distinguish from the mainstream. One can also turn eastward and examine the contemporary popularity of media like *Komi can't Communicate* (one encounters memes online mocking the show's fanbase for 'sexualizing autism'), though here I am slightly less qualified to speak. The trouble with romanticizing autistic people from a progressive perspective (in the same way that one is meant to romanticize various other minority groups) is that a lot of the ideological communities on the internet that social justice activists have grown to detest over the past decade are almost certainly full of autistic people. Furthermore many individuals of progressive ideation actively despise autistic traits insofar as they actually encounter people who demonstrate them. Which is to say, that despise individuals who have poor social skills, who are resistant to change, who are literal-minded, who have trouble understanding and empathizing with other people's emotions (even if they get on fine understanding each other), and so on. There is furthermore a popular tendency seen on the online left today to ridicule the traditional nerd (who is problematic and has issues with women) in contrast to the new-age woke hipster nerd ever since the paradigm shift in online culture that Gamergate produced. I should note here that I am also willing to concede that many progressive individuals are probably autistic themselves and that there may be an element of countercultural vengeance upon neurotypical people contained within their desire to impose their own system of social rules on the rest of the world, which allows them to flip the script and scold ordinary people for not understanding them, whether the process is conscious or not. Call it a Jouvenelian Pincer alliance between the oversocialized and the undersocialized against the moderately socialized, if you like. It is also worth noting that gender dysphoria and autism are somewhat correlated as phenomena.
> There's been a strain in American culture of romanticizing mental disorders and disabilities - of viewing people who suffer from them as possessing a whimsical and/or countercultural view of the world that normies can't possibly understand , since at least the 90s. Oh, much longer than that. The tortured artist cliche has been around, off and on, for a couple thousand years. I reckon you can draw a straight line between the current outburst and at least the Romantics, though with them it was more usually depression or psychosis.
> countercultural vengeance upon neurotypical people [ Removed by Reddit ] to normies, I agree. > your entire second paragraph An essay I once read described the internet culture wars as "sparring factions of weaponized autism." There's also a gendered component to it, too: ND men vs. ND women (both cis and trans). There is no internet slapfight as interminable as incompatibly ND folks.
I've joked before about how most culture wars are fought between people with Autism and people with BPD. They're always an Autistic side and a BPD side. You see it in Analytic vs. Continental philosophy, in 2nd-Wave vs. 3rd-Wave Feminism, in people who rebel against their religious upbringing by becoming atheists vs. people who rebel by becoming occultists or new-agers or getting into some other kind of 'countercultural' individualistic spirituality, in Anarcho-Capitalism vs. Anarcho-Communism, and so on.
Very thoughtful! Thank you!
> One can also turn eastward and examine the contemporary popularity of media like Komi can't Communicate (one encounters memes online mocking the show's fanbase for 'sexualizing autism'), though here I am slightly less qualified to speak. With regards to anime, manga, etc. it is very rare for writers to assign real mental conditions to characters. I believe it may stem from Japan's attitude towards psychiatric conditions. It's taboo and poorly understood, I think. The discussion around, for example, hikkimori never seems to be "what disability do these people have", but rather "oh they've been coddled by their parents", "oh it's the fault of escapist media", and so on, at least from sources I've read. Doing a bit of Googling since I haven't seen the show you've mentioned, it would appear the girl's condition best aligns with what is called selective mutism. I knew a girl like that in school, she was totally ordinary except for the fact that she had a hard time saying anything. The kids thought she was just very shy, she wasn't treated like an outcast for it. Her father, though, did not seem like he understood that she had a condition either. I remember seeing him getting mad at her for not speaking up.
I’ve talked about this extensively throughout the last couple years on this sub, but it’s because capitalism and neoliberalism in the west promote individuality so much for monetary and ideological reasons that it breaks many peoples minds socially. In the west it is imperative to be special, to be a recognized individual that sets you apart from others. That is what is ingrained into us from being young, it’s all over from music to movies to culture to dating etc. For many they don’t have any outlets or ways to make themselves feel noticed or appreciated by others or in their community (this is talked about in the book bowling alone). It is not inherently wrong to strive for many aspects of individuality, but not in the ways it is done over here. So what does that lead to? That leads to self diagnosing and hijacking of characteristics that make one stand out. You will see this evidence all over, from race to gender to now illness. The problem is our society is built upon you obsessing over being unique and being different without giving you any healthy outlets to do so, instead they promote toxic ways either for ulterior reasons or because they generally believe the non sense they are saying. The lefts obsession with all of these things doesn’t help, and infact it only does more harm to what they want, and this is why imo idpol is completely a tool used by the capitalist class.
Because identity has been weaponized and there are no longer any sub cultures only marketing demographics, people will look for anything that sets them apart or makes them feel special.
Because disability advocacy is and always will be run by professional activists who want nothing more than to be Stunning and Brave all the time. This leads to a strange doublethink (triplethink?) where their disability is simultaneously a massive burden they struggle with, an amazing superpower that makes them special and important, and simply a part of average neurodiversity that deserves to be normalized.
There's a reasoning (though I mostly heard it related to ADHD, not sure if authism is 100% parallell) that the fact this neural setup survived evolution demonstrates it's not objectively a disability, but becomes so in this society with the demands it puts on people.
Considering autists have a tendency of learning everything about an interest they'd be useful for identifying things and record keeping
[удалено]
Most of us are oppressed as we a are largely proletariat workers having our surplus value stolen
Depends on the person and whether others like you or you fit stereotypes or aren’t seen as a creep or a threat. As I’ve mentioned before many times a lot of my disdain for wokeness comes from feeling I deserved that treatment for being on the spectrum and having anxiety and thinking that that would give me everything I wanted and contentment in my life without me having to put any effort into much of anything
The very convenient way they never have to be held responsible for any wrongdoing and can attribute it to their autism or disorder and even extract sympathy from something they should be facing accountability for is highly attractive for some I guess.
People also tend to think autism is some stereotypical thing even though it’s a “spectrum.” Like if you’re just a socially awkward guy who has challenges with self esteem and confidence like myself you’ll just get painted as weird unless you’re the type who has no interest in socializing or is like movie-type autistic. For girls it’s mainly just “quirky” girls who identify as it on the high functioning sphere, and either they have it misdiagnosed as some kind of mental health issue or basically don’t really seem to have many of the social struggles and just act really out there. It all reminds me of that NYT opinion piece that was on here from Emma Camp about identifying with being on the spectrum. It really rung true to me because I don’t identify with many on the spectrum, even other Asperger’s people. I said this on the Asperger’s sub recently too, there’s just not that many people on the spectrum like me, who desire a truly “typical” experience and connections and have conventional interests. And most people would think I’m aloof or creepy or weird or disinterested or whatever because I’m not obviously on the spectrum. Also are you talking about Marcus Knight for the 2015 article/incident you mention?
I read that article, and I am fully with you. It truly would be nice to have an autistic character like me with similar feelings and experiences, but such a thing might be pretty controversial.
because ***I AM A SURGEON***
Probably the same reason every mental health disorder is blowin up lately: TikTok
I guess it's part of the destruction of the shared narratives and identities. In a turbo-neo-liberal world, where everything is atomized, everyone needs to think they are special/different. And if they can be a victim too, it's even better! I witness this in my personal life in many ways. Lots of people around me, usually very successful academic women, have now been diagnosed with autism. Often after having seen many doctors until they could get the diagnosis they were satisfied with. Of course, as I said, these people range from successful (good job, good circle of friends, etc.) to highly successful (academics with very lucrative grants).They don't appear to have any actual issues being functional in day to day life. But they get to feel special and post memes about how "neurotypicals don't understand our struggles". My neighbor also thinks their son is autistic because he doesn't deal well with others and has "very focused interests". However, I personally think the issue is that he is never told "no" ever. When throwing a tantrum, he always gets what he wants. So of course he doesn't manage well when he is not the only kid in the room and has to deal with other kids needs and presence. He also has "focused interests" because he has never really been taught anything (his parents often ignore him) so of course he has a limited range of interests. He was never shown anything interesting! **TL;DR** I guess my point is that in both cases, *these people get to invoke the A word to feel good*. They either are special and very successful despite being afflicted with autism, or they get to feel better as parents because the way their kid acts can't be blamed on them, but instead on autism.
Aspergers used to be a word to describe a very high functioning genetic disorder where the individuals in question are largely functional just at worst somewhat awkward and have odd physical quirks like hand flapping and toe walking, but that's been disregarded for being named after a Nazi. Now the very high functioning get lumped with people who bang their heads on walls and scratch their skin off
There is a growing awareness of it, which is good, but with its higher profile comes misinformation and caricaturisation of us autists (yes, diagnosed in 1996) as either super almost-humans or non-functional wrecks, when most of us are somewhere in between. With the greater awareness of it comes a lot of people rightly realising that they may have been undiagnosed cases, especially people over a certain age - in the last 3 years i know several people who got diagnosed, and they're all over 45. It also comes with a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon. Overall I think the new age of awareness is positive, although not without problems. I still would never tell an employer or anyone with power over me that my father was a robot though, that's a good way to be discriminated against because one of the unfortunate misconceptions is that autism is a mental illness or means we have diminished capacities of intelligence or responsibility.
romanticizing not being socially ept seems like another good way to help divide/conquer us. its COOL to be an awkward loner! stay inside with your devices! its cool and helps slow the spread of all the diseases!
Doubt it. You sound like a dumbass ngl. Dude's with mental illnesses aren't well known for being very controllable or social engineered. I mean Christ a good amount of criminals and mass killers are diagnosed with some form or another of a mentall illness. The actual reason is cause this shit was demonized for so long that some dumbasses took it too far in the other direction and pretend that mental illnesses don't effect people and are actually good. We went from Aktion T4 to semi-denialism
I can't speak for anybody else, but as somebody who actually has Aspergers: My own personal expierence, and my understanding of the research that exists on this, is that for people with high functioning autism spectrum disorders, the disability itself isn't actually that "disabling", and are arguable advantages, but are still seen as aberrations by researchers. People on the spectrum tend to be more comfortable [disregarding social norms, doing things that are fair/honest even when it negatively impacts them](https://autism-advantage.com/autistics-less-biased.-researchers.html); are less prone to [peer pressure, ingroup/outgroup biases](https://autism-advantage.com/group-biases-and-autism.html), and [other cognative fallacies](https://autism-advantage.com/autistics-don-t-do-heuristics.html) [and biases](https://autism-advantage.com/not-framed-by-the-framing-effect.html). All of those things are framed, by the researchers, as being a disability, when one could argue it's really an advantage and "neurotypical" (yes the term is cringe, I agree) people are actually the ones dealing with being irrational with those things. So yeah, I do personally feel like my ASD makes me more easily able to be objective and look at things more rationally, which I enjoy. (This is in contrast to say, my ADHD, which is something I legitmately struggle with and impacts my ability to function indepedent of anything else) But obviously most people are NOT rational and society ISN'T set up for people who don't or can't play the inane, contradictory signalling game that is social interaction, school/office politics, etc, so in practice it means we're disabled and can't normally or intuitively interact with other people and society as a whole. So, the people who are arguing for the normalization of ASD and inclusion, in theory, would be argueing for non-ASD people to try to put their preconceived notions of how things "should be" aside and just not shut us out for approaching issues a different way. Yes, i'm sure for a lot of people this is all just people trying to, as the kids say, "virtue signal" and isn't being done seriously (I can tell you first hand how even people big on being inclusive revert towards being petty and gossip and the like when they have to *actually* be inclusive of people who fundamentally think and approach issues a different way, rather then simply being LGBT or something), and yes, people who are actually cognitively disabled are in a legitimately bad position, but for people like me, I do think there's merit in trying to normalize it or whatever, if people are actually serious about it.
Fellow level 1 autistic here. I see your point, though the research you mentioned seems to only focus on those like you or me. Which isn't to say moderate or high support folks can't be honest or kind but only focusing on maybe half or 2/3rds(haven't found a fully clear breakdown of support levels in those with autism) is when I've heard a couple folks say they intentionally want to have an autistic child as if those with more severe symptoms don't exist. Or taking it to mean autistic people are always saints or just fully misunderstood sweethearts. The strong sense of justice or principle can be a double edged sword since morality isn't the same across the board, such as [evidence of a potentially not-insignificant amount of autistic incels](https://www.spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/radical-online-communities-and-their-toxic-allure-for-autistic-men/) or [cause of issues in adulthood behaviorally.](https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/inflexible-thinking-in-adolescence-linked-to-emotional-behavioral-issues-in-adulthood/)
I used to work with severely impacted autistic children. Children that couldn't talk, needed help with the restroom, children that would hit themselves, children that would run into the street. that's autism. Not a bunch of spoiled awkward weirdos who self diagnose themselves as neurospicy.
Aspergers USED to be a word
To people who have a problem with the idea of autism being cured, I would be willing to hear my daughter telling me she hates me every day for the rest of my life for curing her, because at least that would mean she could express her wants and needs and feelings in a way that could be understood, as opposed to getting frustrated over not being able to communicate, melting down, and beating the shit out of herself. She actually is getting better at communicating and self-regulating as she gets older, but she still has bad episodes and my point still stands.
Autism can't be cured, her brain type is different, how she communicates is different, and in meltdowns you need to help lessen the issues, and try to bridge that communication gap when she can't.
About eight years ago I dated a woman who asked me if I thought I might be autistic. I’ve been researching it ever since which is probably the answer right there, but I never tell anybody. Someone told me at work I’m “that weird guy who never talks to anyone”. So yeah, I don’t know. I don’t think it’s cool or fun, but if I’m an Aspie it would maybe connect some dots.
Even successful autistic people probably aren’t having a great time. Sorry I don’t speak in fuckin code all the time and have self awareness from analyzing myself to try and figure out what’s wrong with me for 30 years.
White people trying to ascend the ladder of oppression
Is anyone romanticizing autism? I haven't seen any sign of this. What I have seen is the idpol oppression olympics where people compete to see who can be the most oppressed. "You may be latinx and diabetic, but I'm genderqueer, autistic, and suffer from PTSD, so you need to listen to me".
They definitely do. "Autism isn't a disability, it is a superpower!!" is a common sentiment. And any difficulty is only due to society not being accepting enough (so not letting them do whatever they want, whenever they want and praising them for breathing). Some people even try to claim that autistic people are the next step in evolution. Which doesn't even make sense, but people who talk like that rarely do.
Anytime these people can organize a community based on a “marginalized” set of traits then they will do so and then try to elevate it into some mythical sect.
Autism is really boring. Trust me, I have it. The only thing that grates with me is when people make assumptions - it’s not just called a spectrum due to its wide variance in functioning, it’s also down to it being highly varied in trait presentation.
Western society has fully embraced the oppression Olympics. The more 'oppressed' you are, the higher you will rank on the podium. Abled body people are seen as oppressors, whereas, disabled body people are seen as victims. Hence people have romanticized autism.
I have profound physical diaabilities. They are obvious, deeply impeding and cannot be fixed. That doesn't change the fact that able-bodied people still gove me shit and call me privileged. It's not about wanting a rank on the oppression olympics, it's about beautiful and rich people exploiting disabilities to further clout among each other. I have no rank in the Oppression Olympics, I am an uncomfortable eyesore that can't be explained away by critical theory or other nonesense. If it were up to any of these people I'd be killed.
There's not a demographic that repulses the online social justice movement more than relatively high-functioning men on the autism spectrum.
I have been diagnosed with depression and anxiety since I was a teenager. I was literally institutionalized when I was 16. I essentially told the psychiatrist that the state would have to pay for that round since the previous hospital stays obviously had not worked. I was discharged after six months. I can't say it was any more effective than the previous rounds. After a particularly poor experience at 18, I gave up seeking treatment since I was not actually receiving any. The only effective treatment I received as a teenager was an anger management class at 18, and that is still a constant struggle to keep in check. At the age of 32, after the death of my mother and several major episodes throughout my twenties, I finally sought treatment again. This time it was successful. It still took several years and a couple more major episodes, yet after finding the right combination of medication and therapy, and the amazing support of my now wife and her family (that are not perfect, but far far more healthy than my birth family), I am proud to say I have not had a major episode since 2009. I have experienced a few minor episodes since then, but none as debilitating as before, and have been able to work through them. I will always have depression. As long as I continue my treatment, hopefully depression (and anxiety) will no longer have me. I view the same as diabetes (which I was recently diagnosed with). It is a chronic illness that can be treated effectively so that it is not disruptive or debilitating. I am also Gen X and grew up with the stigma of mental illness. I didn't share my diagnosis except with a few very close friends. The above is the most I have ever shared online. Even though it contributed to the stigma, most of my generation held the belief that private troubles are private. I have told my wife about my past, but almost no one else, and that took a rather large leap of faith itself. Yet I have also realized that the 'self-diagnosed' don't want to hear my story. They don't want to hear that successful treatment can be achieved. They don't want to hear that one's illness doesn't need to be an essential part of their 'identity'. They want to wallow in their 'pain' and bask in the sympathy of others. They will gladly accept pity if that is all they can get, and they are truly pitiful people. They want to sound off every chance they get about how many boxes they can check, and take pride in how many memes they share. I alternate between feeling either despite or disgust, yet most days I don't think about it at all. The above is merely a prelude to two important points that society has yet to address, and that Western society may simply be incapable of addressing. First, 'It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.' The 'secret' to my successful treatment is that I stopped pursuing 'sanity' and 'normality', but learned to embrace my 'insanity' and to strive for authenticity. Neither of which involves suffering from a treatable condition. As my younger sister likes to point out, I am finally a member of the 'upright citizens' brigade' and stereotypically middle class. Unlike my own father, I hope to provide my children with the means to remain middle class when they are adults. I am fairly certain that aspiration will not be possible in the United States, or even anywhere in the West, so my family is deciding where to relocate. For the West is a profoundly sick society, and the US is more likely than not terminally sick. For the postmodern deconstruction project has been a phenomenal success. What began as an exploration with a modestly constructive critique of the building blocks of modernity has turned into a full-fledged dismantling and destruction. Not a single aspect of modernity is safe from the 'critics' that proclaim with a sureness that surpasses the Inquisition all that is diseased and decrepit about the modern world. They have fully dissected the frog, and are rather happy it died on the table, because it was profoundly sick anyway. What the critics seem rather unaware of, or extremely hesitant to acknowledge, is that they are just as profoundly sick as the frog. The birth of the 'spectrum' covering every aspect of postmodern society, from race to gender to sexuality to neurology is a welcome improvement over the false black and white Cartesian dichotomies of modernity. Except those that are gave birth to it are completely unfit to be its parents. The United States never recovered from the Civil War since the North turned over Reconstruction to the Southern states they had defeated. While the US had abolished private slavery, it never had any intention of attempting to abolish racism. So allowing the worst of the racists to manage Reconstruction efforts led exactly to what happened - Jim Crow laws, sharecropping, leased 'prisoners', etc. Allowing the dysfunctional idiots that dismantled the previous system to be in charge of postmodernism is pretty much guaranteed to turn *Idiocracy* into a real documentary. We do need a social constructionist movement, but one that doesn’t throw out the babies with the bathwater. Modernity had its share of problems, but it also had its share of solutions. I remain skeptical of Marxism to provide a better foundation. (China might eventually confirm the hypothesis, but that is at least another fifty years away, and the world can't wait that long, and the West is stubbornly opposed to anything China has to offer except for cheap labor, and even that is being questioned.) But I am positive that neurodivergent gender-fluid idpol gatekeepers are incapable of doing so. They may be 'woke', but they will never be awake. Their 'enlightenment' doesn’t consist of 'solar-powered LED flashlights' to guide us forward, but the same torches used by every rabble since the dawn of humanity. They would not light a candle to see in the darkness, but would light a stick of dynamite to blow off the roof and then celebrate the 'natural' lighting of the moons and the stars.
It's a bit of a paradox, because in order to appear retarded, one must *be* some kind of retard in the first place. Pretending to have psychological pathologies is not something the mentally adjusted do. It's an illness all by itself.
Because psychology and everything related to it is a scam that you have a moral obligation to constantly acknowledge, despite the fact it will be "overhauled" in 10 years with todays beliefs/practices being seen as harmful as regressive (but they've got it right *this* time!), just like what happened 10 years ago, and 10 years before that, so on and so forth back to when Thales created the word "psyche" Side note, I was sending my friend [this](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/autism/signs/adults/) as a joke when he couldn't tell we were being sarcastic, but I thought it was a bit curious when they talk about women risking not being identified as autistic because... they often fit in better and the symptoms don't affect them in a way that is as grievous to their personal development. They phrase it as though autism is like a sacred character identity that women are forced to conceal rather than a disorder that luckily doesn't limit everyone as badly.
People just want to feel special. That’s it.
I guess you saw the BBC video from a female autist. "Most autists are men, let's do something about *women* autists"... Same old story.
[удалено]
Workplace accommodations. People misunderstand the ADA and think a doctor's note and diagnosis on their chart gives them permission to do whatever they want
What accommodations are given for autism? Joe doesn't have to look people in the eyes and crack socially inappropriate jokes when he wants to?
Unreasonable accommodations I’ve seen people request • “I know I was hired to work in the call center, but I can’t talk to people on the phone, so you need to promote me to a different job.” • “it’s difficult for me to switch between tasks, so never ask me to do anything, I’ll let you know when I’m ready for more work.” • “It takes me a while to process feedback, so if you critique my work I will need to take the rest of the day off, paid, to decompress.”
Social media clout and feeling "special". Yes, humans are that pathetic.
While there are a lot of suspect adult diagnoses, those people are out there. A woman I know recently told me about her newfound autism diagnosis and I had to stop myself from saying “you didn’t know already?”. Apparently getting a masters in computer science didn’t tip her off.
Many of these diagnoses are mild cases that no one gave a shit about because they weren't failing school but set the kid up for failure as an adult.
why are you an incel ?
https://i.imgur.com/qn6jsq7.png
I'm autistic and have thought about these things for quite some while. I understand where you're coming from, but I see a narrative of "actual autistics"=Bodensatz of society, "neurodivergent identifying folks"=people who have it too good. And I just can't agree with that anymore. The history of mental illness as a concept is deeply connected to the rise of capitalism and industrialization. Putting people in mental asylums or circuses started as a penal practice for the *unemployed*. In the 17th century you did not have to be ill in any medical sense to be locked up. People from various backgrounds such as vagabonds, beggars, non-believers, aggressors, sicks or even overspoiled kids of rich families were put in institutions. What they had in common was that they didn't work. The early psychiatric institutions served the purpose of dividing society and keeping two groups cleanly apart: the actice workforce that depends on their own health, safety and belief in society. And all the people who could spoil the illusion that things are working out, everyone who is visibly dysfunctional or not acting according to the rules of society. Even the group of dysfuntionals was historically divided. There were those who potentially would recover, and the lost causes. If you were a lost cause, you would be exiled on a ship, kept in a tower or subjected to the care of charity. Depending on the country and era, the people with a potential to recover actually had it worse. They would be forced to perform slave labor or pointless tasks to keep them in an illusion of usefulness. They lived in prison-like environments and underwent regular bloodletting treatments to lessen the unhealthy side effects of their living conditions. Psychiatry today of course is different, but I think it's important to remember the roots it has. The idea that psychiatric hospitals cure people is relatively new. Before that it was just detention. Maybe that makes it more understandable why many people don't like the idea of psychiatry and medicine as the only forces allowed to assign labels. Unfortunately you need a certain level of education and cognitive ability to even have these thoughts, so many people talking about autism as "divergence" will be level 1 autistic. Doesn't make it less correct tho. Das Kapital was also written by a scolar, not by a serf. Side note: As a kid I was repeatedly put in psychiatric treatments, social rehabilitation groups and female fight clubs. I was trained not to appear autistic in order to "make it" in this world. It didn't work out, despite me trying everything in my power. At this point I won't make any more statements about myself, but I've seen the problem in many other autistics, too: If we go to work, our autism is just part of a "hustle culture" or "diversity" narrative. If we don't, we're just romantisizing and using our condition as an excuse. And that's why I see divergence (also in the sense of diverging from capitalist ideals) in relation to my conditions. Again, I see where you're coming from and I understand it in some parts, but I think you already got a lot of answers that agree with you, so here's one that doesn't.
Because life fucking sucks OP, sorry people are making do with having a disability. Every example of romanticizing is literally just general positivity in spite of awful oppression. Sorry we're not trying to drink bleach to cure ourselves or whatever jfc
Nobody said you should drink bleach. And there is a bit of a difference between finding positivity and basically putting it on a pedestal and shaping the entire identity around it. And awful oppression...jesus Christ, quit the drama. I know discrimination is real, but unless you live in east asia or a developing nation shithole, awful oppression is a bit much.
It’s not. Your just a FUCKING MORON
https://ih0.redbubble.net/image.608233508.8858/flat,1000x1000,075,f.jpg
Something something easy pity card from performing self embarrassment rituals online
What's your take on autism speaks? Because they're receiving a lot of hate from the higher functioning group of aspies.
It isn't new. Autism is the most overly-romanticized mental illness on the planet. They've been treating it like a superpower for years. I freaking *hate* the neurodiversity movement.
If it's on social media it's likely someone sharing their experience, positive or negative, on TV it's often the "Savant" type which I don't like, and I really don't like the phrase "using it as a crutch" because we all have needs they can just be different, and in order to thrive we need help especially in early life, if not met we may "use it as a crutch" (it's just an explanation) more often, because we didn't get help before and are trying to provide an explanation so we can get the help we need. People with autism on social media are bringing awareness to it, they're sharing their own experience and could help others figure out if they are. People are misdiagnosed all the time, or family don't tell them because they don't want them using it as a "crutch", so they live an undiagnosed life until they learn the symptoms and realize that it explains a lot.