Someone on Mastodon shared this link with me, and I thought you might find it as interesting as I do.
I really hate the misconception of the spectrum. It enables nasty people like Ellen degeneres to justify being a bully (in case you missed it, she tried to get diagnosed autistic. When that didn’t work, she said, well it’s a spectrum so we’re all a little autistic, so I’m not a bully). And enables others to dismiss our struggles, cos hey, we’re all on the spectrum!
Back to the article, I feel like I’m a mix of the three examples. I can see some that match from each example. How about you? When I stop feeling so lazy, I might do my own custom one.
Saw this one before, the message is good but I dislike the use of a box at all here because the analogy is still weird. I like to think of it as an equalizer, traits are at different volumes and gains like the different frequency ranges of sound going through a sound system simultaneously. (Think bar chart for alternate example.) Different traits manifest differently, i.e. perseverance, stimming, sensory sensitivity, monotropism, special interests, etc.
Tangentially on the same topic, I dislike the term “on the spectrum” because this article’s reasoning. You are not sitting atop a one dimensional number line. You ARE the spectrum, and your spectrum “settings” differ from that of others, though only to a certain extent (or otherwise Autism would not exist)
Ellen might be Autistic, she might not. I’ve never met Ellen so I wouldn’t really know. As it turns out you can be Autistic while still being a shitty person. It feels very weird to gatekeep being Autistic. She’s totally wrong about everyone being Autistic but I do think Autism is more common than many people want to admit.
