Autism now more common among Black, Hispanic kids in US

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"Public Health Crisis" is both ableist and inaccurate for the reasons I stated in my OP.

More allistic people are recognizing there are more of us then they thought. That has been a double-edged sword. For all the lessening of stigmas you a lot of people saying Autism is an epidemic caused by vaccines and other "poisons".

That's crazy talk. Everyone knows autism is caused by faeries cursing the child when they're not adequately appeased.

And you know who's prone to forgetting to appease the faeries? Autistic parents.

I also have a feeling that life on Earth is getting more difficult, faster, more complicated, and more and more humans are getting 'left behind'.

In the past we lived in smaller communities where everyone was related to each other, or at least had clear jobs and status in the community e.g. they were the tailor/ the butcher/ the postman. There were clear social rules to follow e.g. if you wanted to be friends with someone, you left your calling card at their house. Life was slow and predictable. So anyone with 'differences' was accepted and had a place in the society.

In the 21st century, there are few small, close, supportive communities, everyone is part of the whole world, swamped in information 24/7. Too much to process. Jobs aren't for life, statuses aren't for life, they are constantly changing. There are no clear social rules to follow, anything goes. Life is fast and unpredictable. People who are 'different' are often excluded and ostracised.

And of course the human population has doubled in size since the 1970s so everyone is crazily competing for everything- resources, attention, money. Rats in a sack.

No wonder anyone who is even slightly 'different to the norm' is struggling and sticking out like a sore thumb. There are more and more of us, increasing every year. So more and more people are getting diagnosed with a condition.

It could be a 'world problem' not a 'human health problem'.

This is true, but likely of limited duration. There has been a relatively sudden and significant increase in prevalence that isn't likely to continue forever. Eventually the bulk of the people with the condition will be identified and the population should stabilize.

It's also important to remember that it's just a sizable minority of people that still buy into the vaccines link, unfortunately, it's still enough to cause problems.

You probably forgetting autism is primarily a disability and a serious one at that for many

The comparison with “left handed ness” was only really relevant to some



Maybe you never seen the many autistic people who are severely disabled, the 33% with constant seizures, the 35-45% (depending on what stats you read) Intellectually Disabled and many more who can’t care for themselves or even know what day of the week it is?

Ok, I don't know anyone who suffers from seizures, and if my post came across as offensive because of the comparison to left-handedness, I'm really sorry, ok? Please, I wasn't trying to be offensive by trivializing anyone else's problems, I was just trying to be positive, that's all. But regardless, I don't think autism is a disability due to medical reasons, but simply due to social reasons. It's been generations now that Non-autistic people, and non-autistic society at large, pathologize all of our unique differences by describing our autism in ways that basically just make us sound like we're mentally ill to everyone else, and yes, if you grow up in a culture where autism is pathologized like this, it's hard not to grow up hating yourself, which I have. I mean, ffs, I even secretly cut myself on a regular basis for two years of my life, so by this point, I'm just f*****g sick and tired of thinking like there's something uniquely wrong with me, and I don't want anyone else to think that there's something uniquely wrong with them simply because they're autistic, either. Even if you suffer from loneliness, isolation, anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation, I can guarantee you that this almost always comes from being forced to conform to a non-autistic world that doesn't want to accommodate your uniquely autistic needs. And I get it, ok? Because my parents are psychologists, and I'm a higher-functioning autistic person/aspie, you'll say that I'm privileged and don't know what I'm talking about, right? But no, even if you're considered more medium-functioning or lower-functioning by non-autistic people, and non-autistic society at large, and therefore more intellectually disabled, there's still no good reason that anyone should be held back simply due to their unique differences due to being autistic. I mean, if non-speaking or semi-speaking autistic people can learn to communicate by writing, typing or using text to speech software, what good reason is there to exclude anyone simply because they're autistic? Ok, I'm sorry, maybe I am just a naive, foolish, deluded and overly optimistic dreamer, but at the end of the day, I just want to live in a world where no one is excluded or made to feel lesser or inferior simply because they're autistic, neurodivergent, or anything else, for that matter.

I understand what your saying about positivity and fairness. I do want opportunity and fairness for us but i don't think we need to be in denial of reality to make that happen.

Pretending we don't have a disability doesn't make it go away, pretending others don't have a disability is dangerous because society then ignores people as being ok when they are not ok.

No one helps people who go round saying there`s nothing wrong with us.

Finally you don't have to change reality to acknowledge your a human being with value for just that in itself. If a millionaire NT successful person killed you they would have to go to jail, so no human is legally worth more disabled or able bodied.

Find your value from that fact and what makes you happy.

Cripples are disabled, but it doesn't reduce their human value.
Same with everyone else with a disability.

Having significant struggles in one or more category of living doesn't reduce your inherent value as a human being, but downplaying those struggles makes it easier for people to insist that bootstraps are an appropriate solution.

Yeah, I can see what you mean. As much as the neurodiversity movement has made gains in building inroads towards inclusion and acceptance of autistic and neurodivergent people, alike, I frankly have to agree that the whole package of the attitudes that can come along with this push for inclusion and acceptance at it's most extreme, like, all autistic people are good, neurodivergent people are all gifted, etc. , can often backfire in diminishing and reducing our struggles in the name of making us seem as normal as everyone else and making it seem like autistic and neurodivergent people don't really have any problems, whatsoever, which can definitely be just as alienating as everyone else. Like, just to name a unique challenge in my own life, I've never learned how to drive, and I probably never will, either, primarily because driving is a very difficult and overwhelming visuospatial challenge for me to navigate that can be very dangerous because of the challenges that already come with navigating other drivers on the road, which franky, I just don't wanna bother with, since from what I've seen trying to cross the street, people driving in cars tend to be the most reckless, impatient, impulsive and irresponsible people you meet, aside from a few wonderful exceptions, and thus, putting your lives in the hands of other drivers just doesn't seem like a very safe or good idea. So thank you for that wonderful and thoughtful response, which I honestly can only really agree with!!

I completely agree!! Sadly, people often tend to go to extremes when it comes to attitudes about disabled and neurodivergent people, tho, like, if we're not tragic cripples, then we gotta be normal people completely free of problems that stop us from participating, like everyone else.

It's frustrating, it's like people expect you to either be 100% fully functional or completely unable to function.

What I'm only partially unable to function?