- cross-posted to:
- ausomememes@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- cross-posted to:
- ausomememes@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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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 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’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.
Unlike planets, people with autism have indeed been born in the last few decades and were not always in existence like some shadow beings
Planets are also being created all the time. They didn’t just all form at once.
But there’s no way to measure if there’s an increase in autism, because in previous generations, it went undiagnosed.
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…
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…
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.
