General Autism Discussion

From the OP: "His dad says that it's embarrassing the degree to which he defends his abusers, and that his son is more disabled than he thought. It reminds me of when I was in elementary school, when I would defend people who were making fun of me in a way I couldn't detect but not being explicitly physically abusive. This guy is older than I was and was being physically abused, and it really should have been obvious to him, but again, a different form of autism."

Sounds like Stockholm Syndrome to me.

When I was little, I couldn't wrap my head around why someone would bully someone because they're jealous of them . I'm not the on,y one who had trouble grasping that am I?

Yep, I get where you're coming from. As well as not recognizing when something was bullying. It wasn't anything awful, mostly just really nasty jabs I didn't get until weeks later, but I didn't actually like any of the people who did that. Mostly because the class I was in at the time was incredibly obsessed with getting drunk and rather creepy levels of obsession about sex. I hung out with the very few people who didn't particularly care for getting drunk and who didn't talk about sexual stuff all the time. (FYI, former classmates, if you're reading this, being arrested for public indecency is not an accomplishment.)

I mean, I can completely understand bullying out of envy now...

Autistic workers... loyal, talented, ignored

Another "autistics make good employees but often don't get or keep jobs due to social shit" article.

But one of the comments stuck out to me, because it sums up really well what's wrong with NT society:

I think some of it's exaggerated, but I agree with the overall point. I'm sure I'm far from the only one who, growing up, thought that normal people were fucking stupid. Like the posters above me with their experiences.

Right now, my brother's manosphere-influenced obsession with getting laid, and his desire to get me laid (despite my lack of attraction to sex itself) is another sad example of the type of shitty world NTs have built up.

I find the first paragraph of that very disturbing, it's pretty close to "master race" talk, as it seems to insist that someone who isn't ASD is inherently inferior to someone with ASD. I'm all for fighting for Autistics to be taken seriously and treated equally, but we're not the friggin master race and others are not a bunch of flaky irrational assholes, they're people like us, some of them are assholes, but so are some of us.

I agree. There are good and bad differences between us, and it's best to accept the differences and recognize that we're both good and bad at certain kinds of things.

I do understand the anger. Still, it's common for discriminated against minority individuals to think Malcolm X-style "You are better than the [majority group]!". It's an overreaction to an extreme situation, and I've noticed that extremism yields opposing extremism. I keep seeing examples of it all the time.

On WrongPlanet there was actually a poll as to whether people prefer the companies of Aspies or NTs. And, the results were varied. For example, some autistics complained that autistics are flaky and disorganized and can't be relied on, which I can actually see. Despite our reputation for being punctual and exact, there are also many Aspies who are not.

I'm reading an article not related to autism, but it got me thinking about it. The article I'm reading is about why it's a good idea to let middle school students take risks, so they'll be less likely to take dangerous ones.

But what stuck out to me is a description of brain reorganization:

Think about that. Around the age of 11, the brain starts to change how it works, resulting in some very different types of thinking.

Now, what does that sound like?

We know that autistic brains are organized differently than NT brains. I mean, literally - tons of extra connections both within and between the hemispheres (a hybrid of typical male and female brain wiring, as male brain wiring tends to have lots of connections within the hemispheres individually, and female brain wiring has lots of connections between them), and a slightly different shape, along with some unusual wiring.

Is this a bad thing? It can be severely debilitating in its worst cases, but in its best, higher-functioning cases, probably a good thing in some ways.

What's more, we know that regressive autism exists. My parents tell me I regressed, forgetting words I once knew, when I was little. I suspect this "regression" is more like brain reorganizing. Not inherently bad, but presents major challenges in a world where teaching is done a particular way, and teaching an autistic to do basic things like speak and engage social skills requires a totally different approach.

Also, there are reports of the low-functioning (such as myself when I was little) becoming high-functioning later on. Even those who lose their autism diagnosis, whether accurately or not. Another example of brain reorganization?

Children with autism have extra synapses in brain: May be possible to prune synapses with drug after diagnosis

No it's best to stop lumping us all together because we share some basic brain structure traits. A "poll as to whether people prefer the companies of Aspies or N Ts." is almost completely useless, because if someone hasn't encountered enough ASD people to make an assessment than they're going to be working of one or two data points, while if they have they'll recognise that while the are many similarities between ASD people we can still be very different people.

You know what kind of people I prefer the company of? Nice people who treat me right, be they people with ASD or not. My ex is ASD and I hate being around her, because she's an awkward Stepford Wives style person who's also a massive coward, while several of my other friends are very not ASD but I love being around them, because they're nice and treat me well.

I've said it before Bonsai, you seem to have an obsession with drawing battle lines between ASD folks and non-ASD folks, it's not a good thing man.

edited 21st Aug '14 5:46:25 PM by SilasW

There are some common elements among people with ASD, but otherwise we can be very different. My best friend and I are both on the spectrum. She's very analytical and precise. Except when it comes to punctuality. I'm very creative and easygoing (still don't really like sudden change, but I can deal if there's enough warning), except when it comes to punctuality. All my friends know that I plan meetings at least half an hour ahead of when we need to...and I still expect everyone to show up at the time I said regardless of situation. Everything else, I'm cluttered, erratic and messy. (But not dirty. I can't stand dirt. Made my trip to Israel very interesting since we mostly looked at archaeological sites).

Also, about that article up there...people on the spectrum can be equally irrational and nasty, there's probably just different reasons for it. For example, I hate wearing jeans. I have no idea why, I just do. ...wait, isn't irrational likes and dislikes without a good reason behind them one of the signs used for diagnosis of ASD?

edited 21st Aug '14 8:24:07 PM by Zendervai

Here's a short film that visualizes what it's like for kids with autism. I don't see it personally, but my Asperger's is pretty mild.

I realize I do see things in a sort of "ASD vs. NT" kind of way, but not completely. It's more like much of society - not all of it, certainly - is prejudiced against difference, and we're pretty damn different. And it seems every other news article about autism is about "curing" it, "preventing" it. Preventing us from existing. Preventing our personalities from existing. "Normalizing" us. It's THAT mentality that I hate, and I realize not everyone has it. But it needs to change.

I really only want acceptance for us. And understanding. People need to realize what it's like to be us, and accept that we're different and they can't, or at least shouldn't if the technology becomes available, force us to change. But with mainstream society's lack of understanding and oftentimes lack of acceptance of autism, including high-functioning, and the focus in science of "curing" us, I actually do see an existential threat.

I'm a little annoyed by how everyone is going on about how great Robin Williams was since he died. They didn't when he was alive, so why change that when he's dead? Why would you speak more positively about a person who's dead ? Shouldn't it be the other way around? I just don't really agree with the taboo against speaking ill of the dead. It makes no sense.

Maybe they thought he was great but didn't feel any need to say it constantly.

Yeah I'd say in this case it's about relevance, until he died it wasn't really a relevant thing. Though I agree with the winder point about speaking ill of the dead.

There are some common elements among people with ASD, but otherwise we can be very different.

Yeah, this is true. I'm on the spectrum as well, but you'd probably never be able to tell unless you met me IRL and interacted with me for a reasonable period of time. About the weirdest thing about me is that i'm pretty damn quiet and don't socialize much.

i don't see an "us vs them" mentality as very useful when it comes to the rest of society. this is, however, coming from someone who doesn't really embrace autism as part of my identity. it's something i forget about most of the time and just see as an extension of my person, rather than some label i apply to myself, if that makes sense. we live in a neurotypical world and that's never going to be any different. we just have to try and adjust.

It's a bit more complicated with public figures I guess.

What I'm saying is. It's ok to bad mouth celebrities while they're alive, but when they're dead suddenly everyone is saying how great they are. There's something really disingenuous about that

edited 24th Aug '14 8:43:05 PM by Xopher001

You can say that we're part of a world that won't be any different, but if minorities in the past, racial, religious, gay, etc. just threw up their hands and said "the world won't change, so we should just adapt", nothing would have gotten done in their favor. Instead, they raised their voices and did something about it.

The most we can do as individuals is to "come out" as autistic, at least online so people can interact with us on websites where they encounter hundreds or thousands of individuals anyway, and let them find out what we're like. Then, as gays have done, "come out" to people who know us, and let them know an autistic. And explain to them.

It worked for gays. There are more gays than autistics, yes, but still, it can help more than it can hurt, I think.

So, who's to say society can't change? It certainly has in the past. Social norms, gender roles, all sorts of stupid crap is being knocked down.

Yeah, it's silly how people are so inauthentic. And then others wear their emotions (or opinions) on their sleeves, and it's seen as "weird".

Bonsai, I see how a "coming out as autistic" movement could be good for other autistic people, but the big thing to remember is that it'll only work if a bunch of people do it at once, and very publicly. Part of why the LGBTQ community has so much support is because a lot of celebrities and generally famous people are coming out after hiding for a while, and that gets media coverage.

If such a movement does happen, I think it'll be really good for autistic young-adults who think they can't do anything. Or really any teenagers with disabilities who think they won't amount to anything in this world.

Like the LGBTQ movement, I think an "autistic movement" (or maybe one for social / learning disorders in general) could encourage kids because they see high-profile people and say "Hey! They did really well. Maybe I won't have such a bad life." 'Cause I think that's one thing lots of social-disorder-people could use: examples of people doing well.

In fact, I had a small dose of that as little as a few years ago, when I discovered that Owl City has Asperger's. I've always admired his work, but when I discovered that bit I started to admire him as a person.

On a related note, if Bill Gates could confirm or deny whether he has Asperger's (like people have speculated), that'd be great.

You also have the issue of the people who just think they're kind of weird, and the people who self-diagnosed.

So we should also encourage people to say if/when they were diagnosed by a doctor.

We also need to explain just WHAT autism/Aspergers is. So people can see that it ranges from people who bang their heads and rock back and forth (and most importantly, the reasons why) to Sheldon Cooper (yes, a fictional character, but our most visible representative).

They need to realize how much fucking effort goes into "pretending to be normal" (there's even a book by that title, written by a very high-functioning autistic woman), and learn to accept our differences that we can't just wish away.

It took people forever to realize that gays don't choose their attractions and can't get rid of them; the only thing making much of society accept gays, I believe, is the knowledge that gays can't become straight. Society will need to learn that pretending to be normal doesn't change who/what autistics are internally, and then from there, realize that since there's nothing they can do about it, they have to learn to understand us.

In that sense, TV shows like Parenthood and The Bridge are helpful. Just as importantly, the autistic characters in both shows are quite different, showing audiences how diverse people on the spectrum can be, so they don't have only one stereotype to rely on (I was called "Rain Man" in high school once).

edited 26th Aug '14 11:54:40 AM by BonsaiForest

I think it's better to address the notion of a.) Providing more resources for people on the spectrum to better integrate with society. b.) Removing negative stigma and attitudes associated with the disorder c.) Making it a general sentiment that it's better to be helpful and encouraging to people with social difficulties than it is to ostracize and single them out for harassment

I tend to shy away from ASD communities on the internet because of the pervasive elitism and entitlement I see. It's coupled with defeatism that would rather blame NT society for everything wrong in the world instead of seeking ways to adapt.

The whole "look at all these historical geniuses that could have maybe possibly almost had the autism" seems to tell some people with ASD that they don't have to make an effort because their diagnosis will validate itself with great achievements. But Mozart didn't just shit out symphonies. He worked tirelessly and endlessly revised them. He was also widely hated for being obnoxious. He didn't have a diagnosis to fall back on and cradle himself with assurance that he would make it.

But no, you still see legions of folks with assburgers that are unwilling to adapt. Instead they foster disdain and compensatory narcissism, some even going so far as to claim that they're the next step in human evolution. They go on about how "N Ts got the system, man" trying to pick apart at an abstract rather than take steps to further themselves despite their shortcomings.