Autism is a disease

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There is nothing shameful about Autism. Having Autism makes life infinitely harder in my opinion.

Yes, it is a disability/disorder.

Also, yes, everyone should treat Autistic people with the utmost respect, because they face unique, insanely difficult life challenges.

If that person with autism is deserving of such respect than they will be treated that way, otherwise they should get no more respect than any other person. While having autism is difficult for the majority on the spectrum, how much respect you deserve is not equal to how difficult your life is/was.

Anybody can have a difficult life so to say that "everyone should treat autistic people with the utmost respect" because of their difficulties would make a person moving in such a way be judged as entitled and arrogant.

Autism is not a disease.

I got my diagnosis when I was 13 and have lived with it ever since.

It is part of what makes you a human.

Life longevity expectancy is not a good criteria to determine whether something is disease or not. Plenty of diseases do not shorten lifespan, but significantly lower the life quality, i.e. Alzheimer's comes to mind. People can get to over 90 years old while still being affected by it negatively. My LTLE shouldn't really shorten my lifespan (at least significantly), but I must take medication and will need it for the rest of my life. It also comes with memory issues and a prospect of neurodegeneration over time.

That said, I do agree that AS is not a disease - just pointing out a logical error.

In my opinion, autism is rather an expression of other, more low-level developmental differences between people like us and NT individuals. Depending on character of these differences the outcome may be a more or less efficiently functioning individual with AS.

often the cure shortens life more than the 'disease', not just with autism - but I think its pretty common, ABA gone wrong and being forced into corrupt institutions, ect.

In this case it is somebody elses narcissism that is killing you, not your autism.

they better not kill you, and if they do ill be pissed cuz your alright joe.

Well it's just that the way links of studies that are often posted here are written like autism isn't just a neurological disorder, it's some sort of life-threatening illness that will have you drop dead in your 30s, 40s or 50s.

Suicide is a self-causing death, it's not the same as dying in a hospital bed from cancer. I'm not saying suicide is less tragic than any other deaths, but usually a person commits suicide either because they want to or are conditioned to want to, as way of escaping. Suicide is more scary for the person's loved ones. So saying "autistic people have shorter life spans because they're more likely to commit suicide" is very misleading. I hope I have explained this right without accidentally offending anybody.

I do not agree at all. Autistic people face unique challenges and our special needs should be catered for by society going the extra mile. Otherwise society marginalises Autistic folk & that is not good for anybody, either the Autistic community, or NT society.

^
I thought these days it was a crime not to respect those that are 'different'*. For example it's uncalled for to disrespect homosexuality or race or the physically disabled, etc. Why are we still living in the medieval times when it comes to autism and some other neurodevelopmental disorders?

*Before this offends anyone, by 'different' I mean an alternate race to whatever race you happen to be.

Because these minorities/social groups have fought for their right to be respected and viewed as equal. And the fight goes on, because they still face rejection, hostility or their voices are ignored. People of colour still face racial prejudice. LGBT people are widely accepted only in relatively small number of countries and in others their voice is ignored, met with mild hostility or in worst cases, simply being non-cishet person is punishable by prison or death. I think trans people have it the worst out of them all, as they are met with rejection even in more progressive societies. I mean, there is whole radfem movement full of terfs who view any trans-women as potential rapists and another example of men taking the space which should belong to women. It wasn't that long ago, in 80s and 90s, when trans people were viewed as freaks and rejected by homosexual community. There are still many who do not agree with adding a letter "T" to "LGB".

Point is, majority must be literally forced to view those who are "different" as equal human beings and think about their special needs. Physically disabled people are a good example here, the laws must be in place requiring public spaces to be architecturally adapted to their needs, because otherwise no one would give a flying f. But this took decades of activism to happen. The change in perspective is a slow process as evident by the fact how many men still view women as lesser to them. I mean, the fight for women's rights has been going on for centuries and it is still far from finished.

Where we, AS people, are disadvantaged is the fact it is not in nature of majority of us to gather into groups and cooperate. A hundred of people acting individually won't be as vocal and visible as fifty acting together.

We are rejected for who we are, but who we are also makes us largely unable to fight for ourselves, for different reasons. There are those who are like me, who prefer living at the fringe of society anyway, there are those who have way too severe autism to care for themselves and idea of fighting for acceptance is outlandish for them for practical reasons, then there are those (I think you belong in that group) who face way too many psychological challenges and issues to spent any energy for activism.

Well we have Frith and Baron Cohen on your side of the pond.

And over here, Just about every mass shooting type event featured by media has the perp called out as autistic at least once.

Then there is the ever present "I am Austism" boogie man from "money talks"

That's happening here too. The 16-year-old serial killer in Essex turned out to be autistic (diagnosed, I think), and the 22-year-old who shot those random people a few months ago because he couldn't get a girlfriend had autism too. And I suppose the next killer will be autistic too.

I haven't really considered that, huh. I guess US gun laws, extremely easy access to weapons, mass shootings and in general violent culture contribute to negativity towards AS individuals. Over here in Europe, mass shootings are extremely rare (and classified as acts of terrorism, whereas for some reason in US the term is rarely used in case of these events) and AS people aren't really associated with criminal activity or homicide more than NT ones. I knew for a long time that it sucks to be US citizen for many reasons, but not realised that it must suck even more to be autistic US citizen.

Most mass-shooters are individual, biological males, who are bullied, ostracised, targeted & abused by others - and often, those people are also Autistic.

So it is a problem on a social level really. If people treat lonely Autistic men like the weirdos that they are, whilst not acknowledging their own weirdness, whilst pretending to be superior because of the gift of being different - is an equation which creates disgruntled mass shooters who see no way out from their horrific oppression, but death itself.

Last edited by Cornflake on 16 Feb 2022, 11:10 am, edited 1 time in total.: Neutered the sexist slant

^ Targeting a person for abuse, also includes excluding someone from a social circle, just because people don't like that person. It is called victimisation as part of discrimination law.

The more I see how most NTs act and treat each other, the more I think being NT is the real disease and I prefer being an "aspie".

To be honest, I have received equal amounts of abuse from both NT's & Autistic folk alike. But it hurts more when it comes from your own kin.