"Hating autism" and the damage it does blog post

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You sound like Kelvin Garrah.

What do you think your brain would look like without autism?

How much of what it is at present would still be there?

Your brain is your self.

The main founder of the autism rights movement was Jim Sinclair, who had been severely disabled as a child (e.g. didn't talk until age 12), but eventually managed to go to college. Sinclair's ideas are relevant not just to "mild autism" but also to the question of how to help severely disabled autistic children maximize their potential.

Indeed the anti-"cure" position arose in the context of Jim Sinclair's advice to parents of severely disabled autistic children.

In Don't Mourn for Us (1993), Jim Sinclair explains, in detail, how a parent's emotional fixation on the goal of a total "cure" harms the child and does not help even severely disabled autistic children develop to what might otherwise be their full potential.

When I was diagnosed things which were described as positive before were all spun into a negative.

I refuse to hate my brain for being logical or 'obsessive' or able to pay close attention to detail or being able to cope by myself in terms of entertainment.

I will hate my brain/senses for causing too strong light to hurt my eyes and making me easily angered. If I was so inclined, I could choose to hate my negative social skills but honestly so what? My family aren't chavs & I can cope just fine on my own re entertainment. And I get along with family and a few close friends - quality over quantity.

I have the capability to separate my strengths from my weaknesses.

I do not have the ability to separate my autistic brain from itself when every bloody part of my mind is called 'autistic'.

I also have the capability to tell that everyone has a s**t brain deep down depending on how you analyse it. That's gaslighting, though. I refuse to be gaslit - I'd rather focus on my strengths than my weaknesses.

Your comments about NT`s are overtly generalising, you claim most NT`s of 7 billion people are not very smart is simply not logical or true.



Your comments about “curbies” also betray a level of intolerance of those with a different opinion to yourself, about their own condition, with the knee jerk calling such people “haters” or “Kelvin Garrah” whoever he is?. I’m a liberal at heart and if someone loves their autism good for them and I’m not interested in changing them or chasing you with a syringe with the cure for autism if one is ever found.

By trying to understand things from others point of view, or at least meet others less fortunate may give you a better whole view of autism rather than the “autiverse” that someone quoted on here once. Viewing autism as a whole rather than just through your own experience .

It does annoy me however when someone like in the attached article tries to dictate how I should feel about my own condition, or worse harass people who desire a cure or better themselves because they want to ram their opinion down everyone’s throats & dictate their lives.

Your comment about the soul and you are your brain, while true to an extent, does not mean your autism is necessarily you any more than any other brain condition. Your comment regarding this is without scientific evidence.

There’s an unusual unexplained scientific phenomenon seen in end stage dementia patents, where most of their brain had been eaten up by the disease, they had been non verbal for months, they suddenly wake up have and have a brief conversation with their relatives over a cup of tea, then shortly after their gone, dead. Its true look it up.

So, there is a lot science does not know about the brain for people to suddenly proclaim your autism is your soul or all of you and demand everyone else better agree.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... -reserves/

But here's the thing: the way autism is officially defined in the first place (e.g. in the DSM 5, it does indeed encompass many aspects of a person's personality -- including the person's greatest joys in life, as well as their disability.

For example, B-3: "Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus (e.g., strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual objects, excessively circumscribed or perseverative interests)."

Likewise B-2 is pretty fundamental to a person's personality.

For a person whose autism includes lots of traits in category B, especially B-3 and B-2, it is simply not possible to separate one's personality from one's autism.

So it has occurred to me to wonder: Does your own personal form of autism not include these personality-defining traits?

(See also this unofficial list of "inclusive autistic traits", which describes autistic traits in a more neutral way, without the negative spin of the diagnostic criteria.)