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My uncle, from the time he was a little boy, liked nothing more than farming and gardening. He has one friend and they talk exclusively about growing stuff. He had to be forced to finish high school because all he wanted to do was wrench on a tractor. He barely talks unless it’s farming related.
He apparently takes after other men in the family, always one or two per generation, who were pretty much mute except when it came to their special interest. And they were 100% focused on their special interest.
Back in the day, it was “Uncle Bob just has those family genes. We get one of them every once in a while. He sure is a helluva good farmer.” Today he would be diagnosed with autism.
Your uncle sounds awesome.
I took one of those autism tests and I can’t remember off the top of my head what the score was but it was very high which both surprises and doesn’t surprise me. I mask extremely well according to most people I meet. Telling me “You seem normal” or even “You aren’t autistic”.
I’ve only had two people tell me “It’s obvious” ever, my mom and a single friend of mine.
But holy hell all the other autism personality/psychological aspects are like cranked up to 100 and I have a love/hate relationship with that. Hyperfocus is a double edged sword for instance. I love that I can get super into something and get really fucking good at it but I don’t love obsessing over the same thing for months to the point of it keeping me awake at night and hurting other aspects of my life because I can’t change mental direction.
It also isn’t good for social anxiety, way too much rumination on single awkward conversations MAKE IT STOP.
I will argue that the mild part of the autism spectrum, what we call functional autism, is not a mental illness, not a disorder.
It’s like being left handed, not the most common thing, it can cause troubles in a world made for right handed people, specially if being left handed is not accepted. But by itself is just another way of being just as “healthy” and “normal” as being right handed.
I think this is an open debate. Some folks prefer it being considered an illness because they want diagnosis and treatment. Others, like me, just love to be this way, and there’s nothing I think is wrong with me. The only problem is that the world is not accommodated for people like me, just like it wasn’t accommodated for left-handed people not so long ago. But as soon as it’s 100% accepted as something normal I don’t see it causing any trouble, so if there’s no harm there’s no illness we can talk about.
The tldr for this is Neurodiversity
Almost all disabilities exist only within the context of a culture. They are a human applied label.
I recon most disabled people can do more advanced complex tasks than any animal/pet. Yet we do don’t think of our pets as disabled.
We are all born with a useless appendix, which can potentially burst and kill us. If someone was born without. Would we all have a disability compared to them.
Someone with only one arm is considered disabled, extra fingers? If its not the default it’s considered disabled.
Now imagine a humanoid alien race with only 1 arm and a hand with 6 fingers. And imagine what their keyboards may look like. A normal human in their society would be considered disabled. Not because you cant use the keyboard but because you would struggle using a tool not designed for you.
Now the reason why you still want a diagnosis even when you agree with the above is simple. Society has not evolved this perspective. We can accommodate almost all disabilities but they key to getting that help is by first bureaucratically “registering” yourself as disabled by a medical professional.
I disagree on the last paragraph. Not so long ago helping disabled people was an obvious thing to do in our societies. I’m not saying it was easy for them or that it always worked. But in the last 70 years our societies changed to remove any help that wasn’t justified. The reason was simply to save money.
Now you must justify that you are different and this difference warrant a different treatment. Because the society became intolerant to difference.
Might be a different comment in the chain where i mentioned i don’t agree with this either but if i want the accommodation today then thats my reality.
I am a firm supporter of moving to a needs first society, not because i have a plan to make things sustainable but because the current system where we sell human survival to corporate greed isn’t doing us many favors.
We din’t need a register of left handed people to start making left handed scissors.
I think society can accommodate without the need for medicalize it. That’s the difference I wanted to make, an illness need to be medicalized. A different way of being does not.
For instance, my lighter skin complexion makes so I have to wear more sunscreen that people with darker complexions. But no one would think of it as something to be medicalized. It’s just “oh, I usually get burned by the sun, I better buy some sunscreen” or “oh, I’m left handed I better put my mouse in left handed mode”, or “oh, I’m gay, I’d better go find someone of my same gender to love”. Something like that. Simple, easy and widely accepted.
Forgive me for asking but are you actually left handed though?
Everywhere i go the default scissors are molded for right hand. On my job (which is very accommodating in a general sense) if you ask they have an additional shitty type which is still right handed in terms of the blades but at least the handle more symmetrical.
For computer mice, those aren’t usually very symmetrical anymore either. Especially if those extra side buttons seem useful there is exactly one on the entire market that i know. This is why the vast majority of lefties use their mouse right handed.
There have been very real situations at my job where could not accomplish a task alone because left handed tools where not available and i was just going to hurt myself. Same thing at home because left handed tools are rarely affordable but are just have to bite the bullet and hurt myself to get the job done.
Don’t even get me started on walking in class room and seeing this:
And then they complain about lefties handwritten being bad.
We are tolerated and accommodation exists but these are still fairly new. My grandpa literally got beaten the left handness out of him. We still face daily disadvantages.
About your sunscreen, i am pretty sure if you would ask a doctor they could point you to the most appropriate sunscreen. My point was not to medicalize everything but to break the illusion of the medical perspective. People have different needs and they need those needs accommodated without unnecessary hoops to jump trough.
Of course neither left handed or fair skinned is of a similar complexity as neurodivergence or autism. Many accommodation i need for my autism are outside my price range, they will only give them to me if i first proof they are required. I disagree with the system but the system is all i got to work with.
It’s the same about depression. I doubt people got “more depressed”, society have just ignored depression for almost the entirety of human history. My mother still tells me to “just be happy” like I can control brain chemicals. Literally nothing makes me happy. Petting my cat only slightly lessens my suffering. Ugh 😓
Marx’s Capital mentions at one point that the working class in Manchester were reliant on drugs like opium to cope with their insane working conditions and poor life/housing conditions.
It’s not a new thing at all.
Just as easily applies to queerness and gender expression too. My favourite part on the these specific issues is the ignorance in the west, acting like being trans and queer is uniquely American and new.
Meanwhile South East Asia is right there…
I just want to take the moment to say, nice to have you all around, especially if you are different. Thanks for enjoying the shit that I don’t. And thanks for sharing my love for something for a different reason. Thanks for showing me a different world.
Also If everyone was like me, my girlfriend wouldn’t be who she is, but ignoring that, I would have a lot of competition and it would be really boring for all of us. Wtf do you talk about if we all would be the same? I would hate you all, and consequently myself. Thanks for being different, seriously.
Something I noticed recently
The same people who quickly bemoan “everyone wants a label now” seen to be the same people who say “all kids do this like that”.
Epidemic? That means it’s a contagious disease, how do I spread my autism to others? By biting them? (If you ask: I consider some vampires “autism-coded”, and I might be making a game with even more autism coded vampires)
When left-handedness became acceptable the number of left handed people was far higher than experts had predicted.
My grandmother told me stories about how she’d get whipped with a stick on the top of her hand if she tried using her left. Coercion never went away: conversion camps, behavioural therapy etc.
My mom told me similar stories. She adored Ned Flanders’s store and used to remind us constantly how easy right-handers have it (semi-jokingly). I think that was my first encounter with the concept of privilege.
Is it psychiatrists who talk about an “autism epidemic”, or certain journalists and activists?
I would argue that psychiatry and psychology does not make this claim. if anything modern psychiatry and psychology along with autism foundations led the push to educate early childhood development associated caretakers, eg pediatricians, elementary and preschool teachers, etc for signs to look for and led to development and revision of specific screening tools throughout the 1990s that started to greatly increase the number of cases that diagnosed early on when they would’ve otherwise would’ve been considered “socially awkward” and ostracized for much of their lives without any support offered at all
Granted there are certainly professionals that reject this now. The field is diverse and you certainly have varying opinions on things. And one weird phenomenon no one saw coming is that in this day and age staunchly conservative viewpoints would be disproportionately platformed. So sometimes those dumb shitheads get a huge platform because when they soapbox on social media saying “too many kids are getting diagnosed with autism” there are forces behind that realize they can be a useful idiot to legitimize awful views, like limiting health care spending (more people diagnosed with autism means insurance companies spend more) or anti vaccination nonsense (autism always attracts the loonies). And a bit of fame will often easily go to their heads, especially if it means they can now make a decent clip of money from speaking engagements and selling books.
But remember those people don’t define the field. They are a sore on the field. The Jordan Petersons and Lisa Littmans are scum that are propped up by a propaganda network and powerful forces. They are outnumbered. That’s why their research keeps getting retracted (or in petersons case why he simply sticks to podcasts and hasn’t authored a paper since 2007), because there are more people with ethics and integrity that will call them out. At least for now, until our institutions surrounding social science are fully dismantled
It’s important to note that neither Peterson or Littman are psychiatrists.
Littman is a physician, but last I remember, she studied behavioral health and psychotherapy. Which is interesting because most doctors who have a significant interest in a field like she claims to have would have shut up a long time ago and pursued it through significant research after a couple of Ph D.s worth of work. But that doesn’t make you wealthy, it just means that the one tiny thing you researched is right. She clearly would rather have money.
Peterson is just a grifting asshole with a psychology degree. Marketing is one of the most common employers of psychologists and he just does it for his own stuff.
I’m out of the loop here. Could someone ad some context for me? What’s this about?
There is an incorrect belief that autism is on the rise and that it must be caused by something, but in reality we are just getting better at identifying it and diagnosing people correctly. So it’s not that there is an autism epidemic, we’re just discovering that it’s less rare of a condition than previously assumed.
So… someone went through a great deal of trouble to share this. Why? I’m confused. What is the message and the audience? Is there something I am supposed to do?
One example is anti-vaxxers claiming vaccines are causing the increase in autism. When challenged, one possible response they parrot is “well then what is the cause?”. The message is that there isn’t a cause because there isn’t an increase in the first place
Between Trump, Palestine, Russia, Ukraine… I just ain’t got time for one other thing. Not this. If there’s nothing I can even imagine doing about this, why is it my business?
Why is what your business? What do you think anyone is asking of you?
You’re the one who asked for an explanation of the post.
Conversations evolve.
The message is correcting a misconception utilizing a concept most people would understand better. It isn’t a call to action, just informational.
… so what you’re saying is that exoplanets cause autism!
You have the causation wrong here.
Autistic people go into astronomy, and then find more exoplanets. Therefore autism causes exoplanets!
Not about ADHD, nice. I probably have both. So many new MH illness to discover. We’re charting new territory…woooo…fuck me
Sailling the ND seas…
Got to say, I don’t really understand. But words ending with the -demic morpheme aren’t used lightly where I’m from and still mean what they do. I assume that’s what’s going on in this comment.
There are bad-faith actors trying to convince people that autism is “caused” by vaccines and similar garbage. They see the growing autistic population as a “woke epidemic”
Not even that necessarily, they just like to act as if a lot of autism diagnoses are made up or at least severely exaggerated.
shit like “bah you’re not autistic, you’re just an introvert, you just need to try harder!”
I’ve faced this myself from my mom’s SO, he was just fucking incapable of entertaining the idea that i’m autistic before i got my diagnosis, despite working with other neurodivergent people and accepting them! It’s maddening.People still think of autism in like… Rain Man-terms.
As much as people like to think popular depictions (The Big Bang Theory, Abed in Community, etc) of autistic behavioral patterns are somehow furthering “the cause” (whatever that is) - ultimately, they amount to little more than vaudeville and can be incredibly damaging to people who don’t “seem autistic”.
It’s very tiring to assure people that yes, you are indeed autistic, when all they know is Sheldon Cooper and Raymond Babbitt.
Especially annoying if they think you’re some sort of genius, when the average autistic’s intelligence generally is lower than average.
Especially now that so many fucking lunatic autistics are committing atrocities.
If you’re obviously greatly disabled autistic=not threatening High functioning autistic=liability
I was diagnosed 20 years ago, and even I had a very hard time recognizing and accepting that my own partner is also autistic (now diagnosed as an adult).
But then again, it seems to manifest dramatically different in men v.s. women, as well as there not really being any depictions of autistic women in media for the longest time.
And a gigantic part of autistic women no doubt went undiagnosed for a long time (and still are).
So you are trying to say there is a bad-failth-actor-idemic. Got it.
Unlike planets, people with autism have indeed been born in the last few decades and were not always in existence like some shadow beings
But there’s no way to measure if there’s an increase in autism, because in previous generations, it went undiagnosed.
I knew kids who for sure had it, and have a cousin who is severely autistic. That shit was rough back then, especially in a third world country, but I commend my aunt for raising him to live in the hard world he was born into, he’s 40 now and can hold down a job and has an apartment. It was hard for him but he made it. The other side of the coin is people in North America who have autistic kids, and stop pushing them intellectually and just go “he’s autistic, don’t push him or teach him to adjust and live, he’ll never get it ” mentality, or the “yay im autistic, how cool” mentality some young people have.
Autism isn’t Super power it sucks
Yeah, that’s the thing, I’ve seen the gamut (and people will say “of course it’s a spectrum”) and a non-trivial amount are people almost treating it as “trendy”, and self-diagnosing or shopping professionals seeking a diagnosis.
I remember at the time they were announcing removal of Asperger’s from the DSM that there was some thought that the high functioning “condition” did more harm than good. It seems the ship has sailed and anyone who doesn’t feel comfortable in social situations and also wants to use it as evidence of their intelligence will go for an Autistic diagnosis. I’ve dealt with a few people who got mad at their mental health professional for telling them they are within the realm of “normal” and everyone finds a challenge in dealing with other people to an extent.
Meanwhile, the people who would have been diagnosed as autistic whether today or 40 years ago suffer some dilution of accommodation, as it seems everyone asserts they are neourodivergent/spicy/autistic online and it ceases to mean much in the popular perception.
Planets are also being created all the time. They didn’t just all form at once.
