Autism as a Disability

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There's something that I don't understand and hopefully I can get some clarification here.

There seems to be a large group of people in the autistic community that think that autism isn't a disability. This group expects autistic people to be proud of their autism. If I state that I want to be cured of autism around this group of people, for example, they will attack me fiercely. Why is this so?

Isn't it wrong for advocates for autism and other disabilities to dismiss the legitimate challenges that autistic individuals face on a daily basis? If someone wants to be free of the need for support to do ordinary things, or if someone wants to be free of sensory issues, or if someone wants to have close friendships and relationships, why would an advocate for autistic individuals show so little understanding?

Some of the issues that wreak havoc in the lives of many people are the direct result of being autistic. These struggles are legitimate and the person who experiences them has every right to want to eliminate the issues that cause those struggles.

I think it may be related to internalized ableism, they don't want to be seen less as a person. But this logic is flawed because it assumes people who are otherwise disabled is lesser

There's a huge difference between clinical diagnosis from "attitude".

The saying of autism is not a disability is an attitudinal way that one can still live and learn well as an autistic.

But due to damnable semantics, can also mean denial of disability as per clinical diagnosis -- internalized ableism or whatever coping mechanism and complexes.


People don't bother with that distinction. Believing it's always one or the other.
It's foolish.

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The whole "neurodiversity VS disability" debate is honestly ridiculous and borderline useless. Anyone who thinks they know what everyone with ASD needs to think and advocate for, a disorder with 100+ genes associated with it and that is literally called a "spectrum" because there are so many different manifestations of it, is fooling themselves. Both of these ideas could easily coexist, but people are too busy feeling "right" and purposely misconstruing each other, instead of actually giving a damn about improving anything for autistic people.

The anxiety and depression that come with autism are certainly disabling for me. I believe they come with autism because they stem from how I perceive things 'should' be and my rigid thinking. I love to going to the pool to swim laps, for instance. But I get anxious when I think too many people will be there. Then I might not go at all. And so I get depressed because I piked out. I've also wasted a lot of time trying to organise things that I can't control.

On the other hand, I don't dwell on possible cures for autism many of which seem to be quackery. I accept my condition like I do my homosexuality and my alcoholism (I might be sharing too much now but what the hell).

So basically I think it is healthiest to accept autism for the good and the bad but then get on with life as it is.

It seems reasonable to me that ND's who support autistic people would encourage us to accept our autism, but I don't understand the need to dismiss the real problems that exist because of autism.

With ASD and schizophrenia diagnoses I can' really deny that I'm disabled.

I've always wanted to be a teacher----but I can't control a classroom.

I would like to start this off by encouraging everyone to check out a book called "Nobody's Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness" By Roy Richard Grinker (an anthropologist who studies autism among tribal communities in Africa).

As for the question, my answer is a bit complicated, because there's a lot of cultural issues entwined that most people don't recognize as culturally created states of being.
For starters, in western society (and I'm mostly focusing on America here) the idea of being a 'functional adult' means being able to live on your own both financially and functionally. If you can't do either then you are not a 'functional adult', and you need to be 'fixed'.

As for people who think they need/want a cure, a lot of that is perspective. For example, trying to have friends but not succeeding, that's because the individual is interacting with NTs as an autistic, but the NTs are expecting the autistic individual to interact as an NT, and if they do not, then they are shunned, there isn't any give on the NT side, no trying to understand the autistic person's perspective and continuing to interpret the autistic person's behavior through an NT lens, even though the NT knows the other person is autistic. That's where a lot of the advocacy for acceptance comes in to question. Look up 'autism double empathy problem'. It's easy to blame yourself for your failures when everyone else does, saying 'if only you were like us, then you wouldn't fail'. I know how much that hurts from personal experience.
The other side of the 'cure' argument usually comes from parents and family of people with more severely debilitating autism. The sort where the autistic individual will not be able to live independently, and the worry of 'who will care for my child when I'm gone?' (this is actually addressed in 'nobody's normal'). Of course our society has this idea that once you're an adult you should be able to completely take care of yourself, and if you can't then it's your/your family's problem. Society shouldn't have to change/accommodate someone who can't take care of themself (through no fault of their own). While eugenics is soundly rejected, our society is still build around the concept of all people being completely competent and non-disabled.

I know there tends to be a lot more comorbidities with people who have more severe autism, and I think those could definitely stand to be addressed, but that is often lumped in with 'curing autism' too. Things like epilepsy and stuff. I blame society at large for the anxiety/depression stuff though. Trying to live in a world that 'isn't made for you' is frustrating, and trying to change that world is exhausting. But I'd rather change the world than change myself in a way that might cause me to lose a part of who I am. I'm self-taught in a lot of different crafts. All I need to see is visual instructions (pictures or videos) and I can figure out how to make it myself. In fact my brain does this thing where it's like those 3d holograms of objects. I can 'turn' the object in my mind to 'see' the other side, even if I'm looking at a picture of the object. And who's to say that 'curing' my autism wouldn't make me lose that ability? I honestly don't think giving up my 3d hologram brain ability in order to make small talk with co-workers is worth it.

And then there's the fact that we really don't know a whole lot about the brain and how it functions. Throughout history we've been comparing the human brain to the latest technological advancement, first clocks, then trains and now computers. The brain is incredibly complex, and who's to say that in 'fixing' autism, a worse problem isn't created? Example, the thalamus is responsible for taking in sensory signals and sending them out to the brain to be interpreted. The currently believed reason for this is that the thalamus actual acts as a bit of a filter too, filtering out stimuli that don't need our attention (like a ticking clock) in favor of stimuli that need attention (the sound of something heavy falling). In autistic people, the thalamus's filter function doesn't seem to work. All stimuli are given equal importance. In short our brains have no spam filter. If we tried to fix that we might end up blocking a lot of necessary signals, and maybe you end up with a condition like CIPA, a very dangerous condition where pain signals cannot make it to the person's brain. Imagine fracturing your leg, but not know it because it doesn't hurt, so you're walking around on a facture and making it worse and worse.

And one last though, suppose there is a 'cure' for autism. The argument from the 'cure' party is that 'not everyone has to take it!' Or the idea that those of us who accept our autism as a part of us don't need to take it. But honestly, I don't think society would leave us alone. If you try to 'stay autistic' you'd probably get 'can't you fix that?' from other people, and if you choose not to, then you'd be viewed with even more derision than now, because 'you could be normal but you choose not to be, so why should I try and accommodate you when you aren't accommodating me by being normal'

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.