Autism as a Disability

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02 Feb 2022, 1:58 am

My biggest worry isn't the disability itself, in any way or form.

My biggest worry is consent and the ability to speak for myself, regardless of disability status.

I speak for myself and myself alone.
I won't tell my story of how easy or hard my life is. Nor my own sentiment in the matter -- I chose my own path.

Nor I'd tell statements like autism is or did X.
Anyone can curse and blame or praise and credit autism all they want.
But do not drag those who don't experienced the same.
Always say 'I' and not 'we' or 'is'. :roll:

But let's face it:
Nobody wants an inconvenience.
It mattered a little on what form it is.

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blitzkrieg
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02 Feb 2022, 2:03 am

Edna3362 wrote:

But let's face it:
Nobody wants an inconvenience.
It mattered a little on what form it is.

I agree completely. People need to stop slapping labels on us & treating us as a universal group. Each Autistic person has an intricately unique story of their life.

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Benjamin the Donkey
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02 Feb 2022, 11:29 am

AnomalousAspergian wrote:

Benjamin the Donkey wrote:

The problem with simply labeling autism as a disability is that it isn't always a disability in the classic sense. If someone is deaf, or paralyzed, or blind, that's clearly a disability--there's no upside to it. But autism both makes life very difficult and gives me abilities that I don't think I would otherwise have. Also, autism is pervasive--it's present in every part of my life, character, and sense of myself. I simply can't imagine being neurotypical--that wouldn't be me. A classic disability, on the other hand, is just a subtraction of ability--e.g., to walk, to hear, to see; it doesn't pervade every dimension of who a person is.

Suppose you asked deaf, paralysed, blind, person what is the upside to there being the way they are. How would they answer??Chances are they would dismiss the question as irrelevant just as it is irrelevant for an autistic person to be asked that question. What is the agenda behind that question? A disability is a disability. It doesn't make anyone a lesser human being. Stigmatising support through denying that someone struggles with various things, thus disabled is harmful I would argue. Such denialism is a form of narcissism at the societal level.

I doubt you would find a blind or paralyzed person who would turn down the ability to see or walk. But I, like many other autistic people, prefer myself as I am-- even if I do have difficulties-- because a non-autistic person with my face and name would simply not be me.

How was I stigmatizing support? I require some support myself. People should be able to get whatever kind of support they need with no stigma.

What "denialism"? I'm autistic. Some things are very difficult for me. Some autistic people struggle much more than I do. Those are clear facts.

Please read what I actually write.

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carlos55
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02 Feb 2022, 2:27 pm

blitzkrieg wrote:

I have explained this elsewhere before, but this kind of thinking is cognitive dissonance and doublethink, basically.

You cannot claim to have special needs & requirements and then claim you are not disabled.

No NT believes that for a second.

So even if you believe that, NT's don't - and they'll lower their opinion of you for thinking that.

Then your state benefits get taken away because you claim that you are smarter than other people think you are.

In your Autistic mind you are asking for respect - in other people's (NT capable) minds - you just look like an entitled intellectually impaired person, begging to be punished societally.

You shouldn't want to be seen that way as an Autistic person, so you need to conform to NT standards in some way. Unless everybody becomes Autistic suddenly and within your lifetime, which they won't.

You'll then die unhappy or perhaps happy & deluded, feeding off of fellow Autistic kool-aid if you choose the easy option of non-conformity to NT standards.

Couldn’t have put it better myself, truest words I’ve read on here for a while

Good luck with your issues around diagnosis & the nasty DSS by the way

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SharonB
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02 Feb 2022, 8:50 pm

People can absolutely be abled in one area and disabled in another. In reality there is no "line" for general disability, it is a multi-dimensional spectrum like most things. Any wound specialist knows that the pain and prognosis of burns vary significantly not just based on % coverage, but on location, treatment, resources etc. My NT friends are horrible with information, systems, spreadsheets, quality, integrity and justice, but teasing (sort of): they are not considered disabled. Apparently being skilled in hierarchical manipulation and lacking integrity is an abled person. But being kind, clear and honest contributes to a general disability. Whatevs.

Take for example twice-exceptional folks (in the US those with advanced skills aside disabilities). Some people see their disabilities, some people see their abilities. A person's experience will vary in part simply based on how they are perceived and the treatment they receive. In one ASD center the kids are treated well and greatly improve while in another ASD center they are treated poorly and regress. Each group were just as abled and disabled to begin with...

A special person sees the abilities in ASD persons who require more support, while many others just see disabilities (underestimate). Similarly, a special person sees the disabilities in ASD persons who require less support, while many others just see abilities (overestimate). There are pros and cons to both situations.

If one were to draw a line for me: I am generally able, but have significant daily struggles. I'm the paraplegic who had the ability to build themselves a state-of-the-art transportation device but deals with chronic and sometimes severe pain. So does that make me generally disabled? I have abilities - I have disabilities. Same with all of you (as in all human beings.. and animals.. and plants and those non-animal-nor-plant living things including single-cell organisms? but not atoms? ... really where is the line...?).

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03 Feb 2022, 2:15 am

My issues are not because I am Autistic. My issues are because of how I am treated by other people because I am Autistic. I don't need to stop being Autistic for my issues to stop. In order for my issues to stop, non Autistic people need to change how they treat me.

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AnomalousAspergian
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03 Feb 2022, 3:32 pm

1986 wrote:

Apparently it's trendy among teenagers these days to have a major mental illness/disability. I see self-diagnosed people in Reddit's schizophrenia forum acting as if it was the cool new thing, rather than an incredibly disabling illness that robs you of most of your life. In that vein, I can see the neurodifference movement being highjacked by trendiness in making autism a "flavour of le unique" rather than a specific disability which opens up possible routes for government aid and social skills training.

I'm not very disabled by society's standards (In my own opinion I'm like a car fitted with square wheels.) I could use some of my analytic skills as a crutch. I also have the benefit of not being particularly thirsty for social belonging in the first place. I think it's been almost two years since last time I talked to another person from the Western hemisphere in person.

It's trendy to embellish the abilities of autistics. I would argue such narcissistic cheerleading is just as harmful as the traditional, abusive that views autistic people as lesser human beings. Neurodiversity could include autistics and non-autistics alike, thus it doesn't mean an awful lot. It merely represents the economically insecure postmodern cultural epoch of hyper-relativism that we currently live in.

TheOutsider
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03 Feb 2022, 4:02 pm

skibum wrote:

That's great that you don't have problems that are caused by your autism. It would be nice if all autistic people could say this, but in reality, many autistic people have problems that result directly from being autistic.

Edna3362
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03 Feb 2022, 5:43 pm

blitzkrieg wrote:

True from where you people came from.

Irrelevant from where I came from.

Maybe except at the capital regions, where everyone tries to emulate modern US standards and is usually done by the privileged as opposed by the norm at large.

TheOutsider wrote:

skibum wrote:

May I know what are your autistic issues are without involving social interaction and environmental sensory stimulation?

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ChiefEspatier
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03 Feb 2022, 6:05 pm

carlos55 wrote:

Autism is diagnosed via Deficits i.e negatives not positives. So being good at maths or systemising, something many NTs are good at too is not a symptom of autism, however communication problems is (not that all autistics are good at maths)

So that’s why its classed as a disorder automatically. A disorder / disability by definition is when an individual is not able to do something their peers can do, like a child of 5 talking for example.

And this is why aspergers went undiagnosed for so bloody long. The consistency of the "disability" wasn't clear.

carlos55 wrote:

Humans are born with a voice box to allow us to communicate to other humans so when an autistic person is unable to talk it’s absolutely a disability just as much a disability as someone unable to walk.

Men are born with superior strength and size relative to a woman, it doesn't mean they are disabled. Just because one person can do something doesn't mean not being able to do something means you're disabled.

Dis-abled implies you lack the abilities needed for a functional life. In the past people with eye troubles were disabled, especially in societies reliant on hunting. Now we have glasses and people forget that was ever a thing.

You're making a naturalistic fallacy argument, where abled reflects some historical circumstance/ideal, when in reality disableness is in a direct reference to functioning in our modern environment.

carlos55 wrote:

The word orientation / differences are just semantics used a lot to describe sexuality which isn’t a disability of human functioning as who you choose to go to have sex with is not essential for human survival or day to day functioning,

Except you're out of the gene pool, which from an evolutionary perspective is a massive failure.

Turns out historical frame works don't apply to the now. And now that humans no longer define themselves by reproductive success, they see mate selection as a non issue.

Societies advance, and what makes someone dysfunctional is defined by their environment.

As environments change so does the level of dysfunction.

carlos55 wrote:

But not being able to live alone without support is a disability.

The majority of people on the spectrum are not on support. And as diagnosis rates go up, governments are increasingly disinterested in giving money to people who don't have well defined impairments.

Again this is the whole reason I said commorbities.

From a functional-disabled perspective, separating behaviors that have correlations with disabilities is of critical importance.

Having autistic behaviors does not indicative impairment.

By trying to define autism as a disability, you're more or less suggesting that people who have autistic behavior but aren't disabled aren't autistic.

Ironically this is why we came up with the term aspergers in the first dam place.

Your own logic doesn't hold up.

The behavior differences between an autistic person and non autistic is too vast to call non disabled peoples "mildly autistic".

carlos55 wrote:

As far as cure is concerned never say never, they are getting more advanced and there`s no proof a cure wont ever be developed and there`s the potential for treatments being developed anyway to reduce core symptoms.

And this is why I say it's an orientation. Your brain gets wired a certain way in infancy. You can't change that once a person reaches a certain age, and if it did, you could be certain that technology would never be allowed to exist for long as it'd have too much potential to alter our society.

ChiefEspatier
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03 Feb 2022, 6:17 pm

Benjamin the Donkey wrote:

There doesn't need to be an upside for someone to not be disabled.

disabled implies dysfunction/inability to function live independently and so on.

Since online communication has taken over the planet something like being deaf is radically less relevant for people who are deaf etc.

This is the problem of double think. People want autism to be a disability, and then want to ignore all the times when it isn't.

They want it both ways, and that isn't how it works.

Disabilities are defined by failure to succeed in an environment.

As the environments change so does the meaning of disability.

Benjamin the Donkey wrote:

But autism both makes life very difficult and gives me abilities that I don't think I would otherwise have. Also, autism is pervasive--it's present in every part of my life, character, and sense of myself. I simply can't imagine being neurotypical--that wouldn't be me. A classic disability, on the other hand, is just a subtraction of ability--e.g., to walk, to hear, to see; it doesn't pervade every dimension of who a person is.

Yeah I donno, I've had a bad experience with epilepsy.

It went from an occasional odd experiences, like a bad hangover or diarrhea, and now has transformed into what I'd call a proper disability.

I can't drive, I can't work night shifts, I can work on ladders, I have to avoid stress etc.

It's when you really have something to worry about when you figure out what having a disability means.

TheOutsider
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03 Feb 2022, 6:48 pm

Edna3362 wrote:

TheOutsider wrote:

skibum wrote:

May I know what are your autistic issues are without involving social interaction and environmental sensory stimulation?

Environmental sensory stimulation could come from the natural environment so I believe that would still qualify as a problem resulting directly from autism. However, I could still give you examples that would not involve social interaction or sensory issues. Extreme systemizing can cause serious problems. Intolerance of uncertainty can also cause problems. If bad enough, either of these can cause an autistic individual to need support and have nothing to do with NT discrimination.

Dillogic
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03 Feb 2022, 7:50 pm

My biggest annoyances are:

the hyperfocus that makes some things hard, like driving in public (it has positives though)
the hypersensitivity that makes being around people hard (it has positives though)
the social naivety and being too trusting early in life (which made me the complete opposite later in life, sadly)

I got used to people hating me for being autistic pretty quickly, and I understand that one as humans are social. In those pure mechanical deals, humans seem fine with me.

It's a disability by definition, and it disables me, albeit not too bad objectively.

firemonkey
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04 Feb 2022, 2:46 am

Would 'impairment' be a better word to use than 'disability? I was dxed with Asperger's, but certainly don't see myself as someone who's just 'different' and non disabled/impaired. I also have schizophrenia which no doubt is quite different to having Asperger's without it.

Does living independently with a fair amount of support make me disabled? Does the fact I compare badly to age and intelligence matched people from the general public do so?

My lifestyle is basic and somewhat repetitive i.e. eat/drink/sleep/internet/watch some TV. The stress is minimised as much as possible. I'm not a severely disabled needs 24x7 care and support type, but equally so I'm not an autistic high flier who scores very high for level of functioning.

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kraftiekortie
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04 Feb 2022, 8:42 am

I know what you mean, Firemonkey. I'm not a "high-flyer," either.

I'm somewhere in the middle----but with less intelligence than some, and more intelligence than others. I live a pretty "repetitive" life, too. My own mother finds me boring.

carlos55
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04 Feb 2022, 9:18 am

ChiefEspatier wrote:

carlos55 wrote:

And this is why aspergers went undiagnosed for so bloody long. The consistency of the "disability" wasn't clear.

carlos55 wrote:

But not being able to live alone without support is a disability.

carlos55 wrote:

It’s quite simple the symptoms of Autism takes away what should be normal functioning from the individual. It’s diagnosed on this alone.

Google diagnostic criteria for autism there are no positive things in there.

Someone autistic may have some positive traits instead like a great eye for detail but it’s irrelevant as it’s not universal but only in some.

Like some drug addict singers may have been talented like Amy Winehouse or Kirt Coban for example but it’s the exception not the rule, most drug addicts don’t have special talents.

There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that ASD is a benign alternative difference of being but a lot of obvious evidence that it’s a disorder of some kind, both in presentation and in microbiology

Many Autistic people have auto immune dysfunction & genetic errors.

The autism cases where genetics are a cause like 15q11 deletion show that autism symptoms is not a natural benign condition it’s just we haven’t identified other causes for the idiopathic cases.

Also comparing female/ male strength is ridiculous since men are usually stronger because of testosterone from puberty. This is as natural as women getting pregnant.

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