Playing the Autism Card May Be Harmful to Humanity

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Well, thanks for pointing this out. You are very smart.. The material I wrote was over-generalized and I think confusing, perhaps because my own mind is or was still kind of confused about where to go with this card thing. I think this thread, Aspies and Psychology--http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt241925.html --which I very much thank that op for starting, kind of presents a picture of what I am trying to say here. There are two different kinds of people (this is again somewhat of an over-simplification, but to give the gist), and the way they are interpreting this material about being aspie is the way the data is being organized for them. I just wrote about this same kind of topic on the Catfish thread. So, put simply, and for Babybird, especially, there is this card, but these folks are playing it differently. One card can maybe win the game, but it depends upon what the game is and how the person plays this particular card. No time to write more now.

I was admittedly, a little annoyed with you when I wrote that (it was a while ago). However, I also wasn't sure I was right about what you were saying and I guess I wasn't.

I really wish you could get to the point already. I feel like I'm reading a mystery novel and the author keeps teasing about exposing the killer!

I really want to know what you are trying to say, and i feel for you because it seems like it's on the tip of your tongue but it just won't come out.

So you think we should "sort things out"? Sort what things out?

How to behave? or is it more about self-identity?

Maybe if you write out a list of things we should sort out it would help.

I also want to know what is sorting things out?

What are we sorting out?

I do not think autistic people are separate from humanity, or that autistic people should be separate.

If anything, I'm more likely to tell NTs that what really separates autistic people from them is how we think, not what we think about or what we dream about or wish for or want for our lives.

I mean, there are differences, but they don't take us out of humanity or make us less or more than other humans.

Well, this message would be one example of sorting...take away a lot of wrong thinking and ideas about autism and also emotional attachment to being that and not being like someone else and we get to human purity. the purity of being human, and then each brain can function at optimum,a nd this would be obviously very beneficial to humanity.. I am not sure this is exaclty what Verdandi means, but it is close enough.

I am sorry I am too tired to write more and also sorry I am so difficult to understand.

I find it frustrating to see people claim that being an Aspie makes them a superior form of life compared to NTs, or Aspies trying to push the idea that people who are described as low functioning are inferior to them because of arbitrary measures that neglect their humanity.

Verdandi...I appreciate your contribution here...I think you are very smart, meaning very, and can see conections really easily.

This is my take and to me an obvious:

One:All human beings are equally precious and no one person is worth more than any other in this respect.

Two: People have different ways of sorting and grading the value of people. For instance a person who is prejudiced has one way, imo very distorted. A person who says only a person with a college education can be intelligent and thinks they are more intelligent then any person who does not have a college education is another example. A person who only wants someone who is a trained and licensed physician to operate on him, and hopefully not a person who just received his license yesterday and is preforming his first operation. There are all kinds of examples.

In any case, re your comment I have quoted above, this is the part I don't get:

Do not have time to go into it now, but I think you might be kind of mixing certain aspects of 1 and 2 together here...but maybe I am not getting the gist of what you are saying....are you saying that some people do not feel compassion for other people and because of not feeling compassion may treat or not treat other people in certain ways? If so, then I surely agree, but I think that this would not be because of arbitrary measures that neglect anyone's humanity, This is where I am getting a disconnect. Please extrapolate if you care to.

I mean that on this forum some Aspies say things like "I am against a cure for me, but those low-functioning autistics totally need a cure whether they want one or not." Or they keep redefining their notions of "low functioning autism" to mean people who can never ever ever communicate their needs or speak for themselves so they apparently need other people to decide their needs for them. Like, they're positioned as lesser, inferior beings because of their autism and their IQs.

To me it comes across not as talking about people as people, but talking about people as objects because they do not fulfill some arbitrary criteria for personhood, and thus are worthy of pity and the other things above (such as people who do not know them deciding they know what the best thing for them is). I am not sure I am explaining this clearly still, but unless I find an example it's probably the best I can do without clarifying questions.

What Verdandi is talking about is the same thing that some NTs do towards all autistics.

Sociocommunication is central to many people. Not to all, but to enough that I'd say it is to society. So, for those who struggle with it, like us, it's "you don't have these skills, and these skills are part of what makes people human, so you are less than human".

I'm frequently treated like I'm less than human because I'm disabled. Even more so, because my disability includes sociocommunication. People will go so far at times to tell me I don't deserve to live. It's discrimination.

Now, on here, we have people who are usually verbal, capable of taking care of themselves to various degrees, frequently looking for relationships and employment.

And these people are sometimes saying "I'm better than those who aren't like me". "I don't need help, but that person - they don't get a say". And it's the same thing. It's the same idea of speech being what makes a person human. If you can't speak you can't communicate. If you can't communicate you aren't really human.

But you can communicate without speech anyways. And those people do say things. And it doesn't matter. People still are saying "They're not like me. They don't get a say. They're just objects in the world who it doesn't matter what they want, they need to be made normal. I'm normal enough."

I don't think its as arbitrary as Verdandi thinks it is. I think there's a very few specific traits that are always used. I just think its insulting for them to be used as cutoffs ever.

I didn't realize how much it was this way until a therapist who supposedly worked with people on the spectrum explicitly told me that in order to communicate you needed to speak, that nothing else was communication.

Also, this rather turned into rambling, but there's probably ideas in there somewhere that are useful.

Many of us here (including Verdandi) have been saying this for some years to the "Aspiecentrics" here that in having Aspergers you can't have it both ways. On the one hand claiming to have legitimate grievances against NT discrimination (i.e. being treated as a lesser human being) but concurrently having exactly the same attitude toward people on the spectrum with a lower IQ and/or dependent on others and/or those who are non-verbal.

I think you explained it better than I could.

And cyberdad.

I've also seen it when there was a news story about an autistic man (diagnosed with AS) who was described as having severe difficulty with self-care, and people were offended at the thought that people might think all Aspies are as impaired as he is. As if Aspies like him don't deserve any visibility over those who have jobs, families, drive, etc.

It was something that bothered me (the whole "you can't discriminate against me but I can discriminate against them" thing). But I really did a lot of analysis of it after being pushed nonverbal by that therapist. Then I really realized how much it was the idea that to be human you must speak.

I've seen too much of the people saying that people need to look always like themselves. Have jobs, drive, don't want to use the word autism or autistic... Different than those people.

I've also seen too much of parents doing that actually. My child is special. They're not Autistic. They're just an Aspie. My parents are actually like that. I've been pushing on them about that. I think I'm making progress. I'm not special because of the fact that I didn't have a speech delay. I'm just Tuttle, and Tuttle has an autism spectrum disorder, because that's the best way to describe the set of traits Tuttle has. Not Aspie.

I mean, yes, I use Autistic. I'm not a person with autism. I'm autistic. But that's because these traits are part of me. Not separate. They're not a thing I have. It's a descriptor for how I am.

But Aspie turns into someone's identity sometimes and it's challenged when someone like me comes along and says "Oh yes, I have Asperger's, and I don't meet any one of those traits that you are calling Aspie". I've seen it go bad. I've seen someone completely deny my autism because of this.

Because they wanted to have Aspie always mean what they thought it meant and only ever that.

I think we're getting at the other side than what littlebee is thinking about with the autism card stuff.

She's talking about how for some people identifying with autism might hold them back - they might say "I'm autistic so I won't try because I can't".

But for many others, identifying with autism means they know how to approach themselves, allows them to go into treating themselves right, and allows them to push others to treat them right.

It's the difference between a woman saying "I'm a woman, so I can't learn, I don't have the ability to", a woman saying "I'm a woman, so I'm a woman, and I need to do things like take care of the fact that I bleed a few days every month", and a woman being "I'm a woman, and society doesn't treat woman equally, so I'm going to make a difference there as well as doing everything else I want to with my life", and a woman being "Well, men can't make babies".

Littlebee seems to be talking about the first about autism.

But is that really what happens if we're given true support?

If we're babied, then it happens sometimes. But to insult those who are identifying those with autism also are insulting those who are growing and being better because of identifying with the autism. Is that worth it? I say its not.

I've done analysis of it, but I tend to lose things if I don't actively focus on them.

And I appreciate your point about knowing we're autistic empowering us to learn how to work with that as opposed to learned helplessness.

I think you guys might be lumping together two things that don't go together (1) people who have low functioning Autism don't deserve a voice, and (2) being afraid that people will think all people with Autism are like that.

One time I was in a fast food place eating lunch and there was this mentally handicapped guy sitting next to me. A woman was waiting for a seat and there was an empty one at my table, this guy in the loudest voice possible screamed so the whole entire restaurant would hear YOU CAN COME SIT WITH HER. Then some other stuff about the seat. I was like yeah sure come over, but she didn't. Then the guy was talking to the woman he was sitting with in the same LOUD SCREECHING VOICE -- - I'm going to your house for Thanksgiving but I have to go get my pajamas first and we're going to have hot chocolate - he repeated this over and over in the screaming voice, it seemed like about 50 times.

I was like - he is SO OUT OF IT. Very obviously had a low IQ. I felt sympathy for him but I wanted him to shut up because he was hurting my ears. Well BUT THEN, they started talking to me, him and his friend. What I found out was that this man was really kind of intuitive and smart in some ways and very warm and embracing. It still was very clear that he had a low IQ, but I was being re-educated about what a low IQ entailed. I really liked him so much. This was 2 years ago and I have never forgotten that meeting (his name was Oscar). My point being, I would never have known someone with a low IQ could be as he was. A lot of people wouldn't know that because we have too many specific expectations of what being mentally handicapped means.

Autism is the same way, its a long scale of abilities and it can't be described by describing one state of being. I've never been worried about low functioning autism affecting me because I don't tell that many people since I'm not diagnosed - but just because somebody doesn't want to be looked on like they have less abilities then they do, doesn't mean they want to steal the voice of lower functioning people too. But face it, if you have Autism you've already got a s**t load of problems, you don't need incorrect assumptions making it worse.

We need to educate people about what Autism really is. We need to organize and do it cleanly and professionally.

And worrying about the the card is counterproductive in my opinion. Anybody can play any card - kidney disease, divorce, anything can be a card, but i think it's important that we understand as much as we can about what is wrong with us and whether it suits everybody or not, that umbrella of symptoms is called Autism.

Myself, I've been sure I've had Autism for over 10 years, but it was just in the back of my head. Since I've really started looking into it i see that I have way more then the social skill problem (which was all I knew about). It's helped me in a lot of ways. I've been able to better control my "meltdowns," which I just thought was stress. I don't understand this Autism card stuff.

Maybe claiming Autism is a card is a card in itself.

But on the other hand, if there are specific examples of things that are being done in the name of the autism card that are not healthy, sure bring them up, but all autism card, it's not good. i don't get it.

littlebee i'm not picking on you, your threads are interesting, I've been reading them all and they are provoking discussions. I just totally don't agree with you.

The thing is these two things often travel together. You can see it in many of the written objections to the implementation of ASD in the DSM-5, both elements tangled hopelessly together by people anxious over the thought that someone might think that they're as incapable as those other autistic people and at the same time acting entitled to speak for such people - at least in terms of exclusion and describing them in fairly inaccurate and condescending ways.

What's really funny is that we're all kind stumbling around ourselves. We, them, us, they, everyone - we need to get straight on what it is - and you can tell by the questions posed around here and the answers, there's a lot of mystery to it still. So we figure it out and then we educate everyone else.